Feng liu yi dai

Jia Zhangke’s new feature FENG LIU YI DAI draws from over twenty years of footage freely shot with actress Zhao Tao and cinematographer Yu Lik-wai during various trips across China, a filmmaking impulse the director described as Vertovian, but with a digital camera. From this personal archive, he pieces together a story about a silent woman chasing an elusive man she once loved, reusing sequences from key past films of his along the way. Inherently nostalgic, this device deliberately excludes flashbacks; instead, Jia builds a chronological, yet shapeshifting timeline, sculpting a present tense with various image textures and a rich soundtrack. It’s thus only natural that the romance shifts in and out of focus. Shot in three cities which embody the demographic movements and displacements of 21st century China, FENG LIU YI DAI takes Jia’s long-standing interest in the country’s transformation over the past quarter century a step further. Reflecting upon his body of work during Covid, he also seems to express the same piercing melancholy of a whole generation of filmmakers (see Miguel Gomes’ GRAND TOUR) who changed cinema with new digital tools at the turn of the millennium. (Antoine Thirion)

Jia Zhangke: PICKPOCKET (1997), PLATFORM (2000), UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002), THE WORLD (2004), STILL LIFE (2006), USELESS (2007), 24 CITY (2008), I WISH I KNEW (2010), A TOUCH OF SIN (2013), MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (2015), ASH IS PUREST WHITE (2018), SWIMMING OUT TILL THE SEA TURNS BLUE (2020)