Zhangke Jia's latest film, Mountains May Depart, is a sprawling narrative spanning 26 years that follows the lives of childhood friends, Liangzi, Zhang, and Tao. Seperated into three distinct segments, the film begins in 1999, on the eve of the new millenium, where both Liangzi and Zhang find themselves falling in love with Tao. While Liangzi is the kinder, more selfless man, Tao eventually decides to marry the much wealthier Zhang, which sets off a chain of events that envelopes the rest of the film. Mountains May Depart has got to be Jia's most accessible film, a relatively staightforward character drama that is emotionally effective, but lacks the surrealistic touches of his earlier films. The first segment focuses primarily on the love triangle that envelopes the film, with Jia showing the impending changes that capitalism is bringing to the culture of China, and Zhang being the symbolic representation. Shot in 4:3, Jia makes some fascinating decisions in the segment, choosing to solely focus on one characters face even in times of conflict. This segment also has one of the films only surreal moments, a plane crashing in front of Tao the night after she makes the decision to marry Zhang, a symbolic representation of the mistake she has made. At its best, Mountains May Depart captures the influence of global capitalism and the deterioration it brings to Chinese culture, but unfortunately the film lacks the nuance and subtlety of Jia's best films. While the second segment is powerful in its depiction of loneliness that consumes Tao due to her essentially selecting money and security over love and affection, the third segment of the film is where things kind of go off the rails, a segment focusing on Tao's son, a young man who hasn't seen his mother in over a decade. The segment has its moments but it strangely doesn't feel as organic as the other segments, at its worst being a manipulative segment about a boy with daddy issues. In the end, Mountains May Depart has a lot to like, commenting on the dissolution of culture, perils of capitalism, and the need for freedom, but unfortunately it never reaches the levels of his best efforts.
1 Comment
Dani
11/8/2015 09:53:33 am
Completely agree. The second chapter should have been the film. The first lacked subtlety and structure, even in the blocking or camera work. The third was just very messy. And it is a shame, because all the questions it rises are important and interesting.
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