Hanging out w/Jia Zhangke

Hanging out with Jia Zhangke, after a screening of his masterpiece Ash is Purest White. Among the greatest filmmakers working today, Chinese master Jia Zhang-Ke is the foremost cinematic chronicler of the vast changes that have transformed his country over the last half century in its transition from communism to a globalized, increasingly market-based society. Beginning his career as an underground filmmaker working without state approval, he first attracted attention for his mid-length student film XIAO SHAN GOING HOME, which led to his revelatory feature debut XIAO WU—the first installment in his Hometown Trilogy, followed by PLATFORM and UNKNOWN PLEASURES, all set in his home province of Shanxi. While he transitioned to state-sanctioned filmmaking with 2004’s THE WORLD, his subsequent films—including modern masterworks like STILL LIFE and ASH IS PUREST WHITE—remain deeply critical of China’s modernization and the disillusionment it has wrought among the country’s youth. Employing rigorously composed long takes, unblinking naturalism, and audacious narrative structures, Jia captures the ironies, ennui, and often surreal metamorphoses of a country suspended between the past and an ever-accelerating future. As with Killing Justice, Ash is Purest White features a central male character who struggles with a loss of identity when his power is stripped away from him, who is loved by the central female character better than he can love himself.