Mountains May Depart (2016; Jia Zhangke)
GRADE: B
By Daniel Barnes
An alternately rapturous and ponderous story of Chinese tradition resisting the eraser of progress, Mountains May Depart stars Zhangke muse (and wife) Tao Zhao as Tao, a small-town girl whose flirtation with a “true capitalist” and rejection of a blue-collar worker mirrors her country’s culture-redefining economic fortunes.
With her red pea coat and cheerful sense of collectivism, even when she’s the focal point of a love triangle, Tao is an easy avatar for the apple-cheeked enthusiasm of the new China, and the film practically bursts with on-the-nose symbolism. For example, the wealthy suitor’s cherry-red German sports car serves as a counterpoint to the red pea coat, signifying a new era of consumption and loss.
The filmmaking here is far more restrained than in Zhangke’s previous effort A Touch of Sin. There are only a few of the deceptively simple, swivel-against-the-motion long takes that dominated that film. However, the storytelling in Mountains May Depart is just as forceful and bold. After a first act that turns out to be a 47-minute prologue, the film leaps forward to 2014 to cover Tao’s strained relationship with her namby-pamby son Dollar. Finally, the story follows the boy into a vapid, culture-less, near-future version of Australia.
Zhangke makes thrilling and unusual decisions within a rigidly symbolic schematic (there’s a lot more Pet Shop Boys than you probably expect), and Tao Zhao does stunning work, but the other performances are a little more scattershot, especially the actor who plays her college-age son in the final movement. That said, it’s still a compelling and insightful and humane parable of the Chinese economy and traditions, past, present and future.
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