no imago that is a long take
― schlump, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 20:01 (ten years ago) link
get blunted 2 fuq and enjoy the show imago lad http://i.imgur.com/ED9eRuO.gif
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 20:08 (ten years ago) link
Still Life is amazing
imago, some of jia's films are p cheap to buy in eg fopp, and are available to rent legit from lovefilm
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 20:13 (ten years ago) link
yeah pretty extraordinary
unformed immediate thoughts: moved from a fairly static first half to a crazy, delocated second. it became all about departures, arrivals, jarring cuts between hairstyles & band-members. the Culture Team literally and figuratively sailing away down the river, changing its name, heading even into the desert before turning around and going back. the fetishisation of movement, of trains, as promised early on, becomes a baffling and humbling world of missed connections
some wonderful shots. especially liked one early on as our bespectacled protagonist and his maybe-girlfriend have a conversation obscured by the corner of a building, each disappearing behind it & subsequently emerging in alternation. also loved the front-of-cab shots (arrivals, departures) and the increasingly allegorical style
the most haunting character obviously sanming - his central cameo crucial to the entire movie & practically made me cry as he walked off - although it is also noticeable how the two female leads respond to the pressures of both modernity & established creed - they're extremely sensitive to the double-pull, although it is zhong who follows the path (of what rapidly turns out to be exploitation, both by her buss and her commitment-shy boyfriend) furthest before reaching combustion point and disappearing
sanming of course the victim of china old and new, the servant to all masters
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 22:38 (ten years ago) link
mmmm sounds like some good weed!!
― JEFF 22 (Matt P), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 22:40 (ten years ago) link
o hush. also what ya got vs rosenbaum
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 22:41 (ten years ago) link
nice i hope u now go on to become ilx' maven of contemporary chinese cinemalord knows apart from taiwan i am not that well versed
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 22:57 (ten years ago) link
A MAVEN
― JEFF 22 (Matt P), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:32 (ten years ago) link
LJ PLEASE BECOME A MAVEN
― JEFF 22 (Matt P), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:33 (ten years ago) link
rosenbaum is fine, i just stopped caring
he retired
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:34 (ten years ago) link
oh yeah
― JEFF 22 (Matt P), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:35 (ten years ago) link
supreme film critic but i seldom read him now because.......it's on a blog
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:35 (ten years ago) link
his reader archive (along with camper and to some degree kehr) was my most important formative influence wrt film as a teenager
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:36 (ten years ago) link
he's the only film critic I'd say I trust. had my david thompson phase but now I regard him as more a very talkative fellow fan
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:37 (ten years ago) link
my mavenhood is limited to a very few topics, at least within an ILX context. probably only cricket
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:44 (ten years ago) link
and pizza
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:47 (ten years ago) link
you have a good work ethicyou could be a chinese contemporary cinema maven in maybe a fortnight of reasonably dedicated study
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:49 (ten years ago) link
i will be posting a trite opinion about the importance of 'springtime in a small town' on the 21st of october and i fully expect it to be given short shrift
― Chinese Taipei (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:50 (ten years ago) link
haha it's a thought
really though I have to be maven of my writing. I will however pledge to only watch contemporary Chinese movies for the next 6 months (at home - I want to see Gravity)
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:50 (ten years ago) link
good - we could use some contrary challopsing in the gravity thread
― 乒乓, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:52 (ten years ago) link
oh I plan to like it
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:53 (ten years ago) link
oh wait that's clearly a sign that there's alREADY been some *crazy challopsing* well this is ILX ffs of course, I'd be sad if there wasn't
― check yr poptimism (imago), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:57 (ten years ago) link
no... i was playing it straight. the only challopsing has been by the croup and he hasn't even seen it yet
― 乒乓, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 23:58 (ten years ago) link
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssspoilerssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
very interesting, schlump!
yeah, the guy in the intro - dahai. i didn't think to reexamine the opening after knowing the denouement of his segment, but: a heavy static of the potential overlays that first scene. a truck of tomato cartons, overturned - he has plucked but one - sitting on his motorcycle, unsure of what to do. meanwhile the other guy arrives, takes measure, wends his way through, is on his way again. i don't want to draw out the obvious symbolism here but, classmates with the coal mine boss, two lives weighted differently, one ascendant, the other...flat. the story portrayed in the first segment rang the most true to me, even if its irruption into violence felt the most fantastical, wish-fulfillment out of the stories. from here i'm just gonna bullet point some stuff that i took note of while watching;
― 乒乓, Thursday, 10 October 2013 00:33 (ten years ago) link
apparently this movie has been cleared for release in the mainland. i'm surprised, but given the current culture of anti-corruption, maybe the party thinks it's good for people to ruminate on these matters.
― 乒乓, Thursday, 10 October 2013 00:34 (ten years ago) link
Sort've talked about Jia Zhangke yesterday with Han Jie, though more about Hello, Mr. Tree. Still need to see this after missing it at the film festival, bleh.
― etc, Thursday, 10 October 2013 00:37 (ten years ago) link
Just wanted to say, that I'm very much looking forward to seeing this film whenever that will be (probably next spring), that I'll be watching Platform on youtube as well and thanks for the link, and that A Touch of Zen is awesome, especially the final part. That is all.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2013 01:05 (ten years ago) link
― 乒乓, Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
dargis' review reminded me of the scene in the hostess club where all the girls are wearing sexy halloween red army costumes - again, surprised that this is being released domestically!
― 乒乓, Thursday, 10 October 2013 20:00 (ten years ago) link
this is prob my movie of the year
― socki (s1ocki), Thursday, 10 October 2013 20:14 (ten years ago) link
http://25.media.tumblr.com/6fc7d1815d988297321249b7187fc8c8/tumblr_muubfyn7zf1ryzchqo1_r1_500.png
apparently jia loves putting john woo on small screens in his movies!
― 乒乓, Friday, 18 October 2013 02:06 (ten years ago) link
at first I wasn't sure if the violent conclusions to each story really worked, but thinking back, having this pattern in the back of my head for most of the movie really gave the it this powerful sense of dread and I found the fatalism of it all really moving at times
― original bgm, Friday, 18 October 2013 04:06 (ten years ago) link
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/q-a-jia-zhangke-on-his-new-film-a-touch-of-sin/?_r=0
― 乒乓, Saturday, 19 October 2013 14:19 (ten years ago) link
Actually I had been preparing to make a martial arts film since 2007, a real martial arts film. It doesn’t have an English title yet. In Chinese it’s called “In the Qing Dynasty” (在清朝). It deals with the period from 1895 to 1905. The reason I wanted to film this period is because this is when China’s transformation began. And that transformation has continued up to now. It hasn’t stopped.
interesting - WKW covered a time period right after this in the grandmaster. the grandmaster can be seen as a critique of china's creation myth, i think, and it's interesting to see jia explicitly say the same about his movie.
― 乒乓, Saturday, 19 October 2013 14:23 (ten years ago) link
i've been thinking about the scene with dahai at the post office - it's really quite perfect. dahai is exposed as a naïf, who has bought into the party propaganda that justice will be dispensed swiftly and certainly from 中南海 (the equivalent of the capitol building in DC, i think.) so he just tells the postal clerk, send it there! and while it's not surprising that she rebuffs him, i kind of feel that if dahai had been, say, the factory owner, the postal clerk would have known how to send the letter, would have found a way.
― 乒乓, Saturday, 19 October 2013 14:28 (ten years ago) link
will work 4 karag4rg invite
― cozen, Saturday, 19 October 2013 14:35 (ten years ago) link
i guess what i want to say is that, with chinese nationalism being what it is, it wouldn't exactly be ludicrous to expect that every postal clerk in the country would know how to send a letter to 中南海. it's a little bit like how every post office in america will accept letters to santa claus, with a wink.
― 乒乓, Saturday, 19 October 2013 15:21 (ten years ago) link
― 乒乓, Saturday, October 19, 2013 10:28 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
interesting
― socki (s1ocki), Saturday, 19 October 2013 17:04 (ten years ago) link
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/q-a-jia-zhangke-on-his-new-film-a-touch-of-sin-part-2/?_r=0
Q.You’ll be at the New York Film Festival at the end of September. Are you looking forward to it?A.It has a big Chinatown, and I’m looking forward to going there. The first thing is always to find a Chinatown. Then you can have a great Chinese meal. [laughs]
A.It has a big Chinatown, and I’m looking forward to going there. The first thing is always to find a Chinatown. Then you can have a great Chinese meal. [laughs]
HEll Yeah
― 乒乓, Monday, 21 October 2013 12:44 (ten years ago) link
i did a little bit more digging and so yeah, snakes in chinese are a pretty standard trope for seductresses. or at least can be. i'm not familiar enough with wuxia films to know how jia is playing off that symbolism. see also the shot where the camera pans to the cloth w/ the tiger print, and you hear the tiger roar.
― 乒乓, Monday, 21 October 2013 12:48 (ten years ago) link
Really unexpected move by Jia (though I had been tipped even just skimming reviews) ... still 'documentary' elements aren't *entirely* absent I thought, just in comparison to what he'd been doing.
I knew this was episodic going in, but not sure if they were gonna overlap; so I was glad when we reached the end of Dahai's spree. For a bit.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 November 2013 15:57 (ten years ago) link
For several months it has been pegged as being set to receive a (domestic) theatrical release in November, but still a more specific date has still not been set.
Now reports are emerging that the Chinese authorities have banned local media from reporting on the film or reviewing the picture, which claimed the best screenplay award at Cannes, where it played in competition.
http://variety.com/2013/film/news/silence-surrounds-jia-zhangkes-sin-1200853839/
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 19 November 2013 16:18 (ten years ago) link
i can see blue valentine 10+ times in manhattan today, and touch of sin once, at 1.40 in the afternoon.
― caek, Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:02 (ten years ago) link
yes and it's the last day, which is why i follow what's exiting theaters with great paranoia.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:15 (ten years ago) link
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/taiwan-may-miss-out-on-jia-zhangkes-a-touch-of-sin/?_r=0
Everything seems fishy
― 乒乓, Friday, 6 December 2013 12:21 (ten years ago) link
what's fishy about the taiwan situation? i think it's, 1) a case of it just not being that big of a movie compared to what else is on the quota list and the quota longlist. there must be some goofy romantic comedies on the list but also drug war,《毒战》 and the grandmaster/《一代宗师》). 2) maybe a little bit about responding to cultural sector grumbling about mainland cultural influence. the last two years that mainland films won golden horse awards, let the bullets fly/《让子弹飞》 in 2011 and beijing blues/《神探亨特张》 in 2012, there was lots of handwringing, if that's the right word, about mainland films winning taiwanese awards and the brutish machinery of the mainland film industry overrunning taiwan.
even if it doesn't screen, i don't think it's a huge deal. on the other hand, it's never ever ever getting a legit mainland release. i feel like xi jinping or someone else near the top had a moment with this film something like deng xiaoping seeing unrequited love/《苦练》 for the first time.
― dylannn, Tuesday, 10 December 2013 11:12 (ten years ago) link
Wasn't talking about the quota, I was referring to the fact that Jia writes that he can't go for "personal, insurmountable reasons" right around the same time that it's looking like the permission to release A Touch of Sin in the mainland is being revoked
Come on man, that stinks
Your points 1) and 2) are diametrically opposed, if Taiwan really was concerned about mainland brute clout cultural hegemony surely they'd shortlist smaller, more independent productions like A Touch of Sin over lamestream trash like American Dreams in China and Back to 1942
But the quota isn't set with regards to concerns about commercial appeal, the whole process is done through a lottery, if it was about commercial appeal films like Lost in Thailand and So Young would have already received widespread Taiwan releases
Drug War and the Grandmaster have already been released in Taiwan this year, bro
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 10 December 2013 12:29 (ten years ago) link
right, the fact that he suddenly can't go is strange. is your feeling that jia is a smart operator that plays the game just as much as is necessary to keep making pictures (pulling his documentary from melbourne, for example) or that he's got no choice?
and i see what you're saying about taiwan. i guess i'd like to slim my argument down to just saying that a touch of sin might be on the radar of the nytimes but isn't a huge deal to taiwanese cinemagoers compared to other bigger films coming from the mainland.
― dylannn, Tuesday, 10 December 2013 22:59 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/LPcuSwz.jpg
― 乒乓, Thursday, 19 December 2013 13:29 (ten years ago) link
-- seeing wang baoqiang who i can't help but associate with his xu sanduo forrest gump soldier role/going to thailand being in love with fan bingbing and making her scallion cakes role/shilling for instant noodles and cold medication every commercial break on cctv wasting those motherfuckers on the road was a good shock.
― dylannn, Wednesday, 29 January 2014 10:07 (ten years ago) link
watching MMD tomorrow
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 5 March 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
I quite liked it, but not as much as A Touch of Sin
― calzino, Saturday, 5 March 2016 21:39 (eight years ago) link
Lovely until the last chapter, in which Jia falters with the use of English.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 March 2016 19:41 (eight years ago) link
didn't bother me much
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 7 March 2016 19:52 (eight years ago) link
at least not as much as the way no directors but QT and the Coens seem worthy of a new thread for each film
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 7 March 2016 19:53 (eight years ago) link
Start it!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 March 2016 22:01 (eight years ago) link
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 7, 2016 2:41 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark
this was fine, and probably only resonates if you're someone with experience of ESL in the chinese community, and second-generation overseas chinese.
― 龜, Monday, 7 March 2016 22:21 (eight years ago) link
new one is accused of being "greatest hits" by some, i like it fine; wish i hadn't been exhausted.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 October 2018 14:16 (five years ago) link
predictably great and at times transcendent. your man's gun falling out of his pants while dancing to YMCA was 10/10
― devvvine, Saturday, 13 October 2018 12:18 (five years ago) link
i thought it was just ok
― 龜, Saturday, 13 October 2018 12:23 (five years ago) link
STILL LIFE getting a long-overdue Blu-ray release on December 1st: https://t.co/QDSt0wbJPn— Josh Martin (@MajorHints) October 30, 2020
― On average, this critic grades 8.3 points lower than other critics (Eric H.), Friday, 30 October 2020 01:49 (three years ago) link
I like that post from morbs from two years ago, it's painful to think we will never hear from him in the film threads again
― Dan S, Friday, 30 October 2020 02:11 (three years ago) link
All of Jia’s films are worth watching imo. Ash Is Purest White is the one I love the most, but also A Touch of Sin. Still Life was interesting to me, I didn't really get it at the time and want to see it again. Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World - all great
― Dan S, Friday, 30 October 2020 02:13 (three years ago) link
I've seen five of his films and heard him speak at a retrospective. My favourite was The World, maybe it had a slightly more hopeful air than the others.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 30 October 2020 03:23 (three years ago) link
Our new poster for Jia Zhangke's SWIMMING OUT TILL THE SEA TURNS BLUE. Opens in theaters May 28. Exclusive trailer premiere @hyperallergic. https://t.co/eoheERX6B2 pic.twitter.com/ucK21B0CKq— Cinema Guild (@CinemaGuild) April 27, 2021
― calzino, Tuesday, 4 May 2021 19:15 (three years ago) link
<3
― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.), Tuesday, 4 May 2021 22:39 (three years ago) link
Watched A Touch Of Sin tonight and am stilll thinking about it and trying to articulate something more than "it's a grind house version of Ascension. Liked it, did not love it but am willing to change my mind. Mountains May Depart is still the masterpiece.
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 24 December 2023 08:06 (eight months ago) link