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| Joan Chen in 24 City |
Cast: Jianbin Chen, Joan Chen, Liping Lü, Tao Zhao. Screenplay: Yongming Zhai, Jia Zhang-ke. Cinematography: Yu Wang, Nelson Lik-wai Yu. Production design: Qiang Liu. Film editing: Kong Jinglei, Xudong Lin. Music: Yoshihiro Hanno, Giong Lim.
Jia Zhang-ke's 24 City takes a docufictional approach to the history of modern China, telling the story of the conversion of a former aircraft parts factory into a planned community, and by extension commenting on the past, present, and implied future of the country and its people. Jia mixes scenes in which actors impersonate factory workers and members of their families with scenes in which the actual workers appear before the camera. The stories are sometimes painful, as in the one in which a woman tells how she was separated from her little boy during the war and never saw him again, and sometimes poignant, such as the narrative of a smartly dressed, contemporary young woman who was shocked to witness the unpleasant conditions in which her mother worked. Their narratives are interspersed with musical sequences and snippets of poetry, including some lines by W.B. Yeats that prove oddly resonant. The result is an absorbing journey into a world unfamiliar to most of us.
