Still Life (2006)
Directed by Jia Zhangke
In retrospect, the Jia film to be singled out as the Chinese director’s masterpiece, as it now represents a meeting point in his filmography. The early documentary-inspired approach that earned him the accolades of critics appears in this film marred with the operatic and bombastic quality of his later films. The socially conscious plot (set around the Three Gorges Dam project), as well as the pans that define the film’s style, are elements that define Still Life as both a testament to and a prophecy of Jia’s body of work, as well as being his clearest expression of skepticism towards the project of globalization and capitalism that China had begun to carry out around the time he was an art student. Jaime Grijalba (May 28, 2pm; May 29, 4:45pm at Anthology Film Archives’s Jia series)
