| this week's Tribune review : STILL LIFE [6/10] |
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| Sunday, 27 January 2008 | |
 WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Still Life China 2006 Starring : Zhao Tao, Han Sanming Director : Jia Zhang-ke ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IN 2006, Jia Zhang-Ke became the first Chinese director for seven years to win the main prize at one of the "big three" European film-festivals when Still Life was named the surprise laureate of Venice's Golden Lion. In 1999, Jia's compatriot Zhang Yimou had won the same award for Not One Less, cementing his status as a leading light of Chinese cinema's so-called "Fifth Generation" - and Jia was thus anointed top dog in what's inevitably become known as the "Sixth Generation." It's always good to see Chinese film-makers obtaining this kind of international recognition - but while Still Life isn't by any means a bad movie, it's the kind of middling affair that makes you keen to find out what else was in competition at Venice. Children of Men, The Queen and Black Book were all in the running - and any of these would have been a worthier winner than this topical but torpid tale. Jia's spectacular setting is part of Sichuan Province that has been progressively flooded over the past decade during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam - one of the largest engineering projects in history. These still-unfolding events provide Jia with apocalyptic backdrops for what are very small-scale human stories: part of the film's point being the incongruous contrasts between latter and former. There are two (thin) story-strands, which occasionally come tantalisingly close to convergence - both involve folk searching for loved ones with whom they have, for various reasons, lost contact (all too typical, given how more than 1.2 million people have been relocated during the Three Gorges project.) A rather less-ballyhooed member of the Sixth Generation, Ying Liang in Taking Father Home covers similar thematic and geographical turf with much greater verve, humour and economy - seek it out if you can. Still Life feels somewhat ponderous and mannered in comparison, despite numerous grace-notes (ranging from the mundane to the quasi-sci-fi fantastical) that keep proceedings watchable and are clearly the work of a talented, confident film-maker - even if, at the moment, the hype far exceeds the reality. Neil Young  STILL LIFE : [6/10] : Sanxia haoren : JIA Zhang-Ke : 113 mins (BBFC timing) : seen at Fokus cinema, Tromsų, Norway, 17th January 2007 (Tromsų International Film Festival) [original festival report] |
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