Shang han za bing lun

Poetry often dispenses with narrative to concentrate on diffuse feeling, rendered through a constellation of images capable of outlining a mood. This idea is also central to SHANG HAN ZA BING LUN, whose characters read and recite verses belonging to Xin Qiji, who wrote in the mid-12th century. They themselves are from the 21st century, broken beings who live near the Yangtze River in the city of Nanjing. There is a poet-doctor, a suicidal young man, a homeless shaman who practises Taoism, a Buddhist monk, a young woman angry with her father and a cook mourning his late wife. On the margins of an allegedly prosperous, happy China, they interact and cross paths in various settings along the river: a waste-recycling centre, a drainage tunnel, a monastery and a hospital. They are lost souls, their inner states corresponding to an outside world consisting of rubble and decay. They find consolation in the face of a devastated landscape and spiritual nihilism by steeping themselves in poetry; feeling less abandoned comes from recognising affective bonds. This symbolic constellation is usually seen in black and white (except for three colour sequences); there are striking framings and a number of long takes of impressive virtuosity. (Roger Koza)

Zhang Xinyang: MY POEM (2018, K)