tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post3959100538306951091..comments2023-10-31T10:21:00.796-04:00Comments on Thanks for the Use of the Hall: Still Life: IFC Center, Now PlayingDan Sallitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-2122991086338779162008-02-01T14:57:00.000-05:002008-02-01T14:57:00.000-05:00I could never call Still Life's images razor s...I could never call Still Life's images razor sharp, because unfortuantely the two times I've seen it have been on 35mm, which render much of the color and crispness in a rather smeary, though never the less beautiful way. I would love to see it (or for that matter, any of his films) projected digitally.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-5796066390140637312008-02-01T10:49:00.000-05:002008-02-01T10:49:00.000-05:00Jonah - I can't remember that structure from o...Jonah - I can't remember that structure from other films either. (Unless you count the <b>Amityville Horror</b> series.) I have a dim recollection of an animated film that showed the fast-motion evolution of a place over the centuries.<br><br>Funny how Jia is so "on theme" and topical in the selection of his material, and yet doesn't seem completely like a political animal. Rossellini worked a bit like this, I think; but the structures he devised look more like full-bodied drama or outright document, whereas Jia unerringly finds that distinctive middle ground.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-84501073721908060442008-02-01T00:21:00.000-05:002008-02-01T00:21:00.000-05:00One irony that surrounds Jia's new film: altho...One irony that surrounds Jia's new film: although some cinephiles lump digital photography and DVD together as threatening to bring about the death of theatrical exhibition, Jia's razor-sharp, monumentally composed DV images call for the big screen more than most 35mm films I know.<br><br>Re. narrative structure, his explanation of his newest project (or what he is calling his newest project--there have been several) sounds similarly playful and somehow quite moving, even in outline. It will follow the lives of several works in a factory. At the midpoint of the film, the factory is razed, and the characters disperse and disappear from the narrative. After an ellipse, we see a tower full of condos go up on the same site, and soon we follow the lives of several characters living there. They are, of course, completely oblivious to the lives of those who had worked in the same spot before. This apparently simple structure resonates with China's momentous change but also on a more basic, you might call it existential, level. And, despite this resonance and despite the fact that this gesture seems a reasonable extension of certain narrative tricks first pulled by Antonioni-- I can't think of another film that uses it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-12362370355423708092008-01-31T17:06:00.000-05:002008-01-31T17:06:00.000-05:00Danny - certainly the ironic effect of the theme p...Danny - certainly the ironic effect of the theme park in <b>The World</b> is unavoidable. But irony doesn't seem like a vehicle for sarcasm or condescension in Jia's hands. He seems rather to use the irony to pitch the film at a certain level of abstraction.<br><br>I'd say that the theme park would seem more commentative if Jia had composed around it once or twice. When he does it so often, the effect is different. It makes me think of a repeated gesture in a ceremony.Dan Sallitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13136066978329749513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4222475879097604897.post-77367081648854354592008-01-31T14:49:00.000-05:002008-01-31T14:49:00.000-05:00A wonderful piece, Dan, looking at things (like Ji...A wonderful piece, Dan, looking at things (like Jia's "entertaining" and showmanship) that I never really thought about.<br><br>I agree with your assertion of some of these landscape shots as ritualistic, but I still think, at least tonally, that there is a pretty big shift between Jia staging drama around the World Park and around the Three Gorges Dam.<br><br>The former carries a heavy weight of irony to it with every shot, it is unavoidable. To my mind, it overburdens much of the film.<br><br>Of course, I suppose the same criticism about burden could be leveled on a film that stages so much in, around, or in front of such a mega-construction, but for the most part I think Jia avoids overly composed sequences that integrate the construction with such an obviously commentative quality. A good example of Jia still doing that in <i>Still Life</i> is the (nevertheless wonderful) scene between Hong Shen and her husband when she reveals that she wants to leave him, staged with those dancers on the bridgeway and the roaring dam in the background.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com