The Shanxi province in Northern China. Recently, the new Millennium has opened his eyes. By the old coal city of Datong, a Bus rumbles. On Board simple people, poorly dressed. Smoking Men. A Baby, on which the camera lingers. And a woman swept in to the window, looks. Who is with the films of Jia Zhangke familiar, she recognizes immediately as Zhao Tao, his partner. With the exception of his debut “Xiao Wu” (1998), the portrait of a small thief from his hometown of Fenyang, it is always there: from Film to Film, the same quiet strength and at the same time, always a different one. This also applies to the single dramatic arc of his epic “the ash is pure White”: In the figure, the Qiao by actress and the role are intertwined in a way that it is only in the movies.
Nearly twenty years after this opening scene – Datong, such as the railway station for the high-speed trains shows, on the go, in the Hyper-modern – is to meet her Again. Of the unconditionally loving, to be replaced by her gangster boyfriend (Liao Fan) of the page, it turns into a love frustrated woman. For years she has been sitting in Bins, place in prison, to be subsequently dropped. Now you get the after a stroke, in a wheelchair Seat and offers him in the Mahjong hell, now she has to Say, a shelter.
A historical blink of an eye and a cinematic break away, it is still on the way to Xinjiang, to the area of the Uighurs. The train crosses the Wide in a pace in which the view from the window is worth it. For the moment, a chance acquaintance, it looks like it could go for Qiao again to another man. It is not his confession, to operate instead of a tourism company, a grocery store, pushing them in the escape. The gravity of the old clan structure, tugs at her, and even in the cooled state will get rid of the love for Am not. The proximity to the possibility of man only goes so far, that it extends to him, of a to your different Ends held water bottle separately.
A UFO in the sky
that same night break in the self-selected solitude is a UFO across the sky. The Vision marked Qiaos arrival in a strange age, in the acts, as are all aliens over the country. It is the only intrusion of the Fantastic in this otherwise consistently neorealist Film.
In three chapters told Jia Zhangke of China’s dizzying path in the future. The Land of the dying coal mines, the Qiaos father brings to his work, wakes up almost over night in the Land of the Three gorges dam, forced the construction on both sides of the Yangtze river, millions of people were resettled. And a little later it is found again in a high-tech digital Nation, in which the short messages of WeChat set the pace and cameras-soon every public movement of the guards. Jia’s factory designs, in its entirety, is a chronicle of the past two decades. “Ash is pure White” now, once again, all aspects up to the open self-quote bundles, while Zhao Tao changes her hairstyles from the page head on the horse’s cock up to the open-worn hair, however, is less a repetition of the attempt, the ongoing extinction of experience and your rooms. Jia Zhangke brings it to a example narrative.
Video 12.11.2018, 07:19 Uhr01:27 Min.Hong Kong is braced against disposable fashion
“ash is pure White in the” exceeds “A Touch of Sin” (2013), a sword-fighting Wuxia elements-playing episode, the Quartet about the potential for Violence in the new China unity – and also three-piece, up in the near future, projecting melodrama “Mountains May Depart” (2015). In his two-and-a-quarter hours, the Film developed, moreover, a suggestive rhythm. It takes time for the Inconspicuous and shortened with ellipses, huge jumps.
This is also reflected in the Material used. Findings from Jia’s archive can be integrated seamlessly to the new recordings of his French cameraman Eric Gautier: Yu Lik-wai, who has previously photographed all of the films of Jia, was prevented. During the prologue, the sketched bus ride, in his digital 4:3 Format is clearly from the past, mix the emergence of times later, much more sophisticated. One of the women behind a fence to “YMCA” by the Village People dancing while children watch them. In a fraction of a second of cut and counter-cut (Matthieu Laclau) are almost decades. Or Qiaos cruise on the Yangtze: Since any remaining Material from “Still Life” (2006), Jia’s filmic Odyssey between demolition and Flooding of Fengjie, a city that has to make way for the Three gorges dam before standing together, flows left, with Material from the present.
tribute to the world
The original title of “the ash is pure White” is “Jiang hu he n u”. This means as much as “children of the Jianghu”, wherein the Jianghu means a organized world, after decades of latency in the Wake of Deng Xiaoping’s reform years came up. In your code of honor Confucian virtues, their affectation, the pose of the Hong Kong Film gangsters. A careful homage to this genre, the world Jia Zhangke goes no further, however. He is particularly interested in the turmoil of the Jianghu between an inwardly-binding Loyalty and righteousness, which forms itself in the lawlessness of a bridge to the venerable society, and to the outside of the control current morality.
Because while the Jianghu-conspirators of their crooked business reasonably reliable rules to obey, it is marauding youth gangs that beat this criminal world into pieces. The violent death of a shark in a suit-brother – apparently her work. The attack on Bin with an iron rod, no doubt. And the mass brawl, in which he, after he introduced the two perpetrators to the speech that you want revenge for your humiliation now. With an airborne shot from his gun Qiao Bin saves the life of and is sentenced for illegal possession of weapons.
Yi, or righteousness, the Confucian is the Central concept in the Bin, and Qiao the moral principle of their Jianghu membership to see. But this Yi is not enough for a each other front and rear. It competes with the loss of face, the Am afraid, if he is dethroned as a band leader, Qiao would visit her in jail – which is why he makes this gesture of humanity rather. And if Am required initially under the sinister statue-view of the General Guan Yu, a Quasi-Holy from the time of the Three Kingdoms, a clan brother of his debt honestly, is this to try him, under Guan’s counsel, to be humble at the end of a bet to his wheelchair. The seemingly simple code is perverted.
the curse of the Jianghu
Once the Jianghu, always Jianghu: This is the curse that is on all of them. While there is such a thing as social mobility, and also a few growing wealth, but in spite of occasional Exceeded the usual limits no permanent way out. In this respect, Jia Zhangke told, without any direct political issues, the case of a program collected harmonious society knit: Everyone is kindly requested to remain in the place that was assigned to him. Unlike a majority of his work, he came in the people’s Republic of hesitation, and has brought his Film succeed in theaters.
His irresistible power unfolds “ash is pure White” but as a portrait of a woman. Zhao Tao has never played more nuanced than it is here and works but only with Tiny. As a gangster love you with all their gladness, still quite out of it and nudges cheerful people in the page. Then she grows as a young heroine beyond itself, in the prison, lose the attitude, chalk, bleach, back gaunert after discharge with the Tricks of your trade and ends as a woman, your brokenness is not to say, to keep your gear in the handle. You understand, perhaps even better, if you know the cultural mentalities, here, from my own experience. But it’s not a world cinema, as the incomparable master proven to Jia Zhangke for a Long time, if a Zhao Tao wouldn’t look anywhere as pervasive in one’s own soul.
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