ContemporAsian Shorts

Some short films are relatively long and complex, compared to others that are mere comedic sketches. However, some shorts can feel longer than they really are, especially for those unaccustomed to experimental filmmaking. Such might be the case for some patrons sampling the short film program screening this week as part of MoMA’s ongoing ContemporAsian series.

Almost perversely, MoMA has programmed this short film program in increasing order of accessibility, starting with the most demanding selection, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s narrative-free Letter to Uncle Boonmee. For hardcore cineastes, this might be the biggest draw, serving as an impressionistic prelude to his Palme d’Or winning narrative feature Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives, which screens at the upcoming New York Film Festival. Consisting of long artful tracking shots of Weerasethakul’s provincial quarters, it might baffle more literal minded audiences. After all, the house is not Boonmee’s. It does not even look similar, according to Weerasethakul’s voice-over, but it is still a house in a hardscrabble “peasant” community, so it evidently brings the filmmaker’s uncle to mind.

At least, Tsai Ming-liang’s Madam Butterfly has an identifiable narrative structure, but the great Taiwanese auteur’s deliberate pacing and intimate close-ups may tire viewers acclimated to Michael Bay-style filmmaking. A radical recasting of the Puccini story, we watch as a woman deals with the abandonment of her lover in a Kuala Lumpur bus station. However, for those with grown-up sensibilities, Pearlly Chua’s largely improvised performance is quite affecting.

It is quite a statement to say Jia Zhangke’s contribution has one of the stronger narrative drives of the program, but there it is. His eloquent Cry Me a River is sort of a fifteen minute crystallization of The Big Chill, without the now clichéd reliance on classic rock to set the mood. Four former classmates have returned to Suzhou to celebrate their former professor’s birthday, but they are really there to reconnect with old flames.

Though inspired by Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town, even viewers familiar with the pre-PRC classic (banned after 1949 for being insufficiently political) might not automatically recognize it as such. However, both involve former lovers coming together after a long separation to come to terms with their regrets. It is one of his more elegant films, again distinguished by a moving performance by his frequent muse, the lovely Zhao Tao.

Unfortunately, many of those who walked out during the first two films Friday night would probably have enjoyed Hong Sang-soo’s Lost in the Mountains had they stayed. Like River, Lost also involves former students visiting their ex-professor, but Misook was amorously involved with the married man. Returning on a spur of the moment visit, she is appalled to discover her best friend Jin-young has taken up with the old lecher. Not thinking clearly, she proceeds to drag another former lover in to the awkward reunion.

Often very witty in a truthful, cutting way, Lost is a film general audiences can easily relate to. In addition to being cute, Yumi Jung is convincingly over-wrought but also quite funny as Misook. Indeed, it is a fine comedic-dramatic ensemble piece, nicely turned by its four principals.

All four directors are important filmmakers and each selection is a noteworthy film. However, the program order should have been reversed. While Lost is a thoroughly satisfying film and River has a strange quiet power of its own, Letter is a tough sell to all except true film fest diehards. Well worth checking out and sticking with, the ContemporAsian shorts screen at MoMA through Thursday (9/16).

Jia Zhangke at MoMA: Spring in a Small Town

They live in a once grand home half demolished by bombs in a town that cuts off all electricity at midnight. Yet, knowing what institutional madness lies ahead, these were actually days of relative peace and sanity for one family in 1948 China. Banned after the Communist takeover in 1949 for being insufficiently political, Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town, has since been rehabilitated, hailed by many as a true masterpiece of Chinese cinema. Having influenced Jia Zhangke, particularly his short Cry Me A River, it screens tomorrow as the conclusion of the MoMA’s Jia retrospective.

At one point, Dai Liyan would have been a good catch. Now sick in spirit as much as in body, he is tended to by his cold but dutiful wife Zhou Yuwen and Old Huang, the still loyal family retainer. The only spark of life in the house is provided by his vivacious younger sister Dai Xiu, until the fateful day Dai’s old friend Zhang Zhichen pays a visit.

It turns out Zhang also has quite a bit of history with Zhou as well, having nearly been engaged years ago. Inevitably, sparks flare up again between the two frustrated lovers, despite their efforts not to hurt Dai. Further complicating matters, Dai Xiu also seems to have eyes for Zhang, which would be a match her brother would like to make. It all eventually unravels in a Chekhovian melodrama, featuring characters too tired for melodrama.

Helmed with a delicate touch by Fei, Spring is all about regret, but never about anger. These characters have made their choices and are prepared to deal with them. As Zhang, Li Wei is decency incarnate, while Wei Wei exudes quiet fortitude as Zhou. Fei also brilliantly incorporates his two main sets, the decrepit family house and the equally dilapidated city wall (a frequent rendezvous destination), creating a vivid sense of time and place. While it is a bit intrusive at first, Zhou’s frequent narration also heightens the sense of a time gone by.

Old-fashioned in the best sense, Spring is lovely film about the flawed individuals that make up the extended Dai family. It is all the more poignant when one speculates what would happen to them, given their “bourgeoisie” lineage, post-1949. It is a heartbreaking thought. Screening with Jia’s Cry, which also addresses the pain of love denied, Spring wraps up the Jia retrospective at MoMA this Saturday (3/20).

Jia Zhangke at MoMA: 24 City

A funny thing happened on the way to the Workers’ Paradise in Chengdu. The state factory turned into a luxury condo. It was known as Factory 420, but it will soon be 24 City, a high-rise hotel and apartment complex, which takes its name from a classic poem that extolled the city’s beauty. A traditional staple of Communist propaganda, the factory story gets a subversive twist in Jia Zhangke’s 24 City (trailer here), which screens during MoMA’s upcoming Jia retrospective.

Some proud veterans of Factory 420 refer to it as a place where they fought “American Imperialism.” They produced munitions and airplane parts for China’s Communist allies during both the Korean War and Viet Nam, but recent years were not kind to the state enterprise. After several rounds of layoffs, management has decided to pull up stakes, selling the Chengdu factory to a real estate developer.

Many former workers tell their stories in 24 City, but Jia throws the audience frequent curve balls, mixing in fictionalized interviews filmed with professional actors, several of whom would be quite recognizable to Chinese audiences. For Americans, there will be at least one familiar face: Joan Chen, well-known for her work in The Last Emperor and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. In a bit of self-referential casting, Chen plays a woman supposedly nicknamed after the title character of the film Little Flower, because of her resemblance to its young star—Joan Chen.

In both the real voices of Factory 420 and Jia’s fictional characters, we hear tangential references to the dramatic upheavals of Communist-era Chinese history. The Cultural Revolution is mentioned in passing. A relative’s homecoming from the countryside is remembered, but not elaborated on. Although nobody states it directly, many former workers of 420 clearly seem to be wondering why they went through all that chaos, just to get to this point.

Jia, the skillful cinematic gamesman, matches the look and tone of his scripted sequences to that of his legitimate interview footage quite well. Generally though, the more attractive the talking head, the more likely it is to be a professional ringer. Joan Chen in particular is still a strikingly luminous screen-presence. Post-modern playfulness aside, her segment is a touching dramatization of alienation in contemporary Chinese society.

24 City fittingly concludes with its other standout dramatic performance, which encapsulates all of the cultural and generational divides at play in Chengdu. Jia regular Zhao Tao plays Su Na, the grown daughter of factory workers who makes her living as a personal shopper for the nouveau riche. Though her relations with her parents were long strained, a chance visit to her mother’s workplace opened her eyes to the difficulties they endured. In gratitude for their labor, she resolves to make her fortune so she can buy them an apartment in that future capitalist Mecca: 24 City.

Although Jia’s pacing can tend a bit toward the languid, he effectively captures China’s mood of uncertainty. His use of nostalgic music and film clips evokes a sense of a past which failed to live up to its promises. 24 City is a subtle, intriguing film freely mixing fact and fiction to represent its own subjective truth. It screens at MoMa this Saturday (3/6), with the director in attendance, as well as next Friday (3/12).

Jia Zhangke at MoMA: The World

If you want to talk about globalization in China, Jia Zhangke is your filmmaker. He has specialized in dramatizing the societal impact of china’s radical change of course, from top-down state planning to more market-driven policies designed to make China an economic super-power. Leaving behind his hometown setting of Fenyang, Jia found the perfect physical manifestation of the tension between China’s globalization and its rigid social controls in Beijing World Park, the theme park known for its recreations of famous landmarks. The park’s employees see the Eiffel Tower and the Tower of Pisa every day, yet they lack both the means and the freedom to travel themselves in The World (trailer here), which opens MoMA’s retrospective of the director’s films this Friday.

There is definitely something surreal about World Park in a Vegas kind of way. It even features a troupe of showgirls performing dance numbers ostensibly based on world cultures. It is not exactly the superstardom Tao dreamed of when she came to Beijing from the provinces, but it is a job. Her boyfriend Taisheng also works at the park as a security guard and shuttle driver. While they spend most of their time amid the gaudy splendor of the park, they still live mean and desperate lives.

Tragedy and romantic strife are no strangers to park employees, most definitely including Tao and Taisheng. However, the bickering of their amorously linked co-workers Wei and Niu far exceeds their own. Is it possible to find happiness in the park? Well, in Jia’s vision, it is a lot like finding it in real life, except more so.

The World is an outstanding film, but it requires viewers to synch-up with Jia’s cinematic aesthetic. He presents the world of The World from a fly-on-the-wall perspective, never really letting us into his characters’ inner psyches. All we know of them in psychological terms comes from what we are able to pick up along the way (which is not inconsiderable).

In a touching and ever so real performance, the lovely Zhao Tao is absolutely fantastic as Tao. However, her most effecting scenes are not with Chen Taishen’s Taisheng, but with Alla Chtcherbakova as Anna, a Russian dancer who befriends Tao, despite their lack of a common language.

Jia’s fourth film is a departure in more ways than one. Not only is it not based in his native Fenyang, it was also his first film produced with the approval of the Chinese government. While Jia’s films have always been marked by his naturalistic Vérité sensibility, The World seems hyper-real. It characters are often dwarfed by outlandish backdrops of the counterfeit wonders of the world. Indeed, the visuals are often quite dramatic, given a glossy sheen by cinematographer Yu Likwai. Lim Giong’s ethereal electronic soundtrack also heightens the otherworldly vibe, and the sense of alienation by extension. Jia even allows brief fantastical intrusions, like the short animated interludes that symbolically accompany the characters’ text messaging.

The World is a great film and a fitting kick-off to the MoMA’s retrospective, but it is not those with the short attention span Avatar crowd. It is sad and demanding, but also beautiful, offering rich rewards for those that can appreciate them. It screens at MoMA on Friday (3/5) and Sunday (3/14) with Jia and Zhao in attendance for the opening night of his retrospective.