Chinese Cinema: The Work of Jia Zhangke - Essay Example

Chinese Cinema Chinese cinema has highly been influenced by the globalization, sub s and new technical filming techniques “A central theme in Jia Zhangke’s narrative cinema has been the socioeconomic upheavals that have accompanied the sweeping reforms introduced in China by Deng Xiaoping since the late 1970s.” The work of Jia Zhangke has depicted this as it brings out and more so scrutinizes the obligation of technology and industrialization in the current Chinese society. The two situations are the major cause of hostility and division of the Chinese society. In the film, The World, Jia’s character depicts these paradoxical results clearly. In his film, he focuses on the isolation of shifted persons in the urban setting and the collapse of the society. In the film, Jia undermines the attempt by government to globalize the country without the Medias democracy. In this regards, Jia attempts to give the implication the government is trying to globalize the country without any form of questioning. This situation gives a very huge gap between the government perfect society and the Chinese experience. Jia gives different perception to the Chinese society in terms of their place in the world, their uniqueness and their actual segregation from international society Film production has been internalized, gained popularity and more so gained popularized screen plays in international basis in the last few years. In this regard, Jia tries to bring out the inter-modality. Inter-modality contains subtitles and digital media used to show up film characters to convey the modern life, and more so create some understanding. Jia uses China to convey all the problems that all persons worldwide face i.e. both the Chinese and the foreign audience. Basing my idea on Tao, a character in the movie The World, who has a relationship with a Russian dancer by the name Anna and also has romantic moments with Taisheng i.e. Kin-Yang Szeto’s study reveal, “Set amid this grand image of national transformation, the film tells a story of romance between Tao and Taisheng, two young adults who work at an existing tourist attraction in Beijing called World Park.” Jia Zhangke uses subtitles for cross-cultural intermediation that enable his film to fit into different social backgrounds. The use of this has given Jia a chance to avoid Chinese government restriction. In addition, use of subtitle has enabled his film to be shown in different parts of the world without any official authorization. In the process, people worldwide get to know the new face of China and more so get know more about Jia’s unique film style. It is evident that what happens in China still happens in other parts of the world. Such things include migration, inter-culturality and displacement. Jia is that kind of a person with knowledge and understanding that cinema is a medium that conveys information worldwide without any barriers. To avoid government control, Jia uses devices such as digital video to circulate the film very first. Technology has enabled filmmakers to have their cinematography due to the fact that they are now cheap and accessible. More so, the independence and lack of control from any parties have played a role in the development Chinese cinema. Jia’s generation of filmmakers has been developing a new variety of cinematographic style enlightening daily life and having ideological implications that have consequently influenced their own approach to make fictional films. Such films as documentary in fiction styles gives them chance to question and make statements of which are self liberation or self reflection process. From the film The World, Tao and Taisheng, the presumed couple, have a talk about the weather, though Tao is somehow unresponsive “A voice-over is heard of Taisheng asking, ‘‘Are we dead?’’ and Tao responding, ‘‘No, this is just the beginning.” Jia is able to take videos without being questioned or controlled by the government surveillance, what he terms as the ‘revolution of digital video.’ This can be extracted from the article by Kin-Yang Szeto where he says, “In particular, Jia’s film depicts the new and disruptive power relations involving heterosexual love and marriage in the broad context of China’s rapid modernization and marketization.” This enables him to take non-actors from the public. There before, videos were considered suitable mediums for documentary but not fictions. Despite the fact that videos give an impression of ideal or fictional situation, it does give an impression of reality. In the film, the directors therefore use the cheap DV and take the documentary subtext into literature world. In this approach, everything seem to be okay since all the operations have been improvised enabling the integration between the documentaries and fictions and more so exploration of the relation between the cinema, video, animation and computer screen. This answers how these approaches shape the Chinese films, the impact that they have on the media, art and culture. More so, it gives how impact globalization and industrialization has to the film production industry. The cinema of Jia Zhangke belongs to visual mode in which can actually be described as the post socialist realism. This brings in Marxist relation of stand and superstructure that recognize creation of art or cinematic. In this, there is restriction and promise made by the wider circumstance of the base or mode of creation. In this regards, the Jia’s film is highly correlated with the Chinese ideological communication in both aware and unaware points. On the conscious point, is linked to the narrative content of the film. This depicted by the use of Chinese vernacular and social cultural landscape in the referencing, fine detail, non-fiction historic events supports the consciousness part. It could therefore be right to say that Jia’s film acknowledgement is the same as acknowledging Chinas modern ideological history. It would sound fair to consider China a third world country due to the fact that the modernization has been the most important aspect in their economic policies. In his film, Jia expresses not only the best styles but also assembles realistic traits. In this case, the film has marked textual and formal features that are real and are motivating. In his work, his realism manifestation and traditions international recognition gives it a very big image and reputation about film event as a field of cultural construction. More importantly, this declaration shows that Jia and other Urban Generation filmmakers have no choice but to discuss their visual and cultural positions within the global-local environment when China has gone through the unstable sea of market economy i.e. “This is made possible partly by Jia’s skillful use of subtlety and irony as well as giving his potential critics some of what they want. In this case, Jia goes along with the official government image of Beijing as a burgeoning Metropolis preparing for the 2008 Olympics” In his film, Jia differs with his fellow filmmakers in term of his authenticity especially while presenting his documentaries. In this argument of film style, taste formation, and global-local relation, what should also be emphasized is the spreading of value, be it ethical, artistic, or cultural. Realism is not only a gathering of traits but a set of stylistic cues that guides us in come to grips with the filmmaker’s realistic motivations. Jia’s realism is a type of self-empowerment that gives him powers to participate in the challenging filmmaking environment of post-socialist China and the international film scene. His stress on constructing the visual memories of his age group articulates the urgent need for recognition among the large groups of people and the demand for justice. This encouragement is close to what Charles Taylor calls “the politics of recognition.” While it is important to point out that Jia and the Urban Generation do not represent a common organized political cinematic movement, the value of authenticity in Jia’s case is inbuilt in this fight for the right to speak for his generation. Jia scrutinizes post-socialism as a cultural logic stimulating with inconsistency between the major goal for neo-liberalism and wistfulness for discussing with a residual collectivist past. In this regard, the film tells the story of a young pickpocket Xiao Wu in Fen yang, Jia’s hometown, who faces a lot of difficulties due to his behaviors and evening leading to the collapse of his associations with his family, friends, and a woman due to the fact that he was not ready to do away with his criminal activities. In this scenario, Fen yang is depicted as an unfashionable town boy in a fix of world of discontinuities where knock down is everywhere and socialism, credibility and reliability are missing in our society. The film’s genuine appeal, enhanced by the use of easily upset hand-held camera and on-location shooting, gives rise to the opportunity to articulate the individual’s historicity. Xiao Wu gives his presence with an alternating history that is disappearing or that recur only in its reflective reconstruction of individuals culture. At the beginning of the film the Maoist portrait builds up a conflicting circumstance in which the characters may benefit from the residual influence of Maoism in ideal China but must struggle with its unavoidable loss of legitimacy. As Xiao Wu is the focus to the forthcoming threat of removal in a fast-moving city, his everyday survival in post-socialist China is depicted in his personal struggle against the ruthless symbiosis of capitalism and socialism. This film conveys a remarkable sense of presence and reality by giving at most real time and immediacy to real place. As depicted in cinema reality, it gives an impression and more so reminds viewers that historical observations are actually derived from lived reality. The importance of accuracy in Jia’s films is not restricted to the two types of realism. As generally noted commented by many viewers, the use of surrealistic elements into his films is very interesting. As Jia is always aware of the constraints of realism, he is fond of mixing fictional and surreal elements with the real one so as to come up with the best combination and therefore producing the best. Flash-style animation intervals and colorful dance sequences in The World reveal Jia’s interest in going beyond boundaries. Sincerely his accomplishments to intertwine the real with the fictional part of the film together bring forth an intricate but essential philosophical question about knowing, experience, and representation. This in return brings some light on issues about values and ethics as well as the required standard. In the film, there is a point Jia that gives his opinion that the changeable reality of Post-socialist China is definitely strange in nature. ‘I think surrealism is a crucial part of China’s reality. In the past 10 years, China has experienced the kinds of changes that might happen across a span of 50 or even 100 years in any normal country, and the speed of these changes has had an unsettling, surreal effect. For example, in The World, the World Park setting in Beijing is itself a fantasy.’ If radical changes in reality are unreal and fantastical, what is the best figurative mode for depicting this real problem? At times, the mixing of the authentic and the unrealistic not only a does it come to an end from the reality mode of his previous work but also a venture that needs a lot of critical thinking and interpretation so as to make logic of the altering reality in post-socialist China. In a visual perspective, this combined mode cannot be stringently regarded as documentary realism, but it depicts a similar thinking and information by realist and documentary filmmakers. In The World, Jia brings out poor conditions by shifting his work from the consumers perspectives to those who are employed to work for the theme parks. If consumers of theme parks in China are going through what is known as the trend of global capitalism, the employees therefore who offer their services in the theme parks are puzzled by their elimination from this global game. Marxism hostility tendencies come out clearly in this case. There is a scenario in the film that occurred at construction site, while inspecting an airplane, the emigrant employees whom they nicknamed “Little Sister” inquires from Xiao Tao the people who were on board. But due the grief that he did not have any idea of those in bound, he rudely expresses himself that he had never been in plane there before. Work Cited Bloom, Michelle. "Transnational Chinese Cinema with a French Twist: Emily Tang Xiaobais "conjugation" and Jia Zhangkes "the World" As Sinofrench Films." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 21.2 (2009): 198-245. Print. Connor, Linda, and Geoffrey Samuel. Healing Powers and Modernity: Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian Societies. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2001. Print. Jia, Zhangke, Jieming Li, Shōzō Ichiyama, Tao Zhao, Wei W. Zhao, and Qiong Wu. Ren Xiao Yao: Unknown Pleasures / Office Kitano, Lumen Films, E-Pictures Present ; a T-Mark, Inc., Hu Tong Communication Production ; in Association with Bitters End ; Producers, Shozo Ichiyama, Li Kit-Ming ; Director/scriptwriter, Jia Zhangke ; a Film by Jia Zhangke. Tokyo: Office Kitano, 2004. Szeto, Kin-Yan. "A Moist Heart: Love, Politics and Chinas Neoliberal Transition in the Films of Jia Zhangke." Visual Anthropology. 22 (2009): 95-107. Print. Read More