Zhantai

It's an epical, relaxed, meandering, beautiful, rich, etc. laconic time portrayal of China's cultural history in the 80s, based on the fate of a theatre company. The protagonists are mostly "twen slackers" who wait for the artistic breakthrough, and director Jia follows their lives in mostly aloof, breathing tableaux. What in today's cinema Hou Hsiao-hsien achieves for space and Béla Tarr for time, is combined in here, without directly referring to both of them. Here, horrible tragedies (a divorce lacking any emotions) take place as well as not less horrible comedies (the mine workers contract: "Death and accident are acts of destiny. The firm will not take any responsibility."), but everything seems to be straightly taken from real life. The title 'Platform' alone already indicates the oddly depressing tone of the film. The desperate waiting, eternally postponed by short changes of perspective as a fundamental experience of a whole era. "We're standing on the platform and we're still waiting, waiting." Although, the film is set in the 80s, 'Platform' also brilliantly and perfectly captures the mood at the end of the 20th century: a rampant epos of never realised chances and daily travail. The film of the new millennium.

"Zhantai" has so many of the features I have admired from recent Oriental masterworks such as " A Brighter Summer Day", "Eureka" and "City of Sadness" that I will have to find some justification for considering it ultimately so much less satisfying. Like these others it succeeds in creating a complete world of its own that, because it is so remote from Western experience, exerts a fascination that is hard to forget. We are in Fenyang a small town somewhere West of Beijing, where flat plains give way to craggy, uninviting mountains. The time is the early 1980s when strict Maoist ideology was about to give way to a period of consumer liberalisation. A group of young actor-singer- dancers employed by the state to remind provincial audiences of the principles of Mao through the medium of stage entertainment are about to see their world fall victim to the progress of private enterprise, when no longer needed for government propaganda. What was once a captive audience turns fickle, often rejecting outright the new form of pop culture they are offered. The irony is that progress in this context brings disillusionment resulting in a group of friends drifting away from their close initial camaraderie. By the time the film ends their future looks far from confident. Both thematically and atmospherically "Zhantai" has the potential for great cinema. Why then after two viewings in quick succession do I find its sense of communication so elusive and uninvolving? The answer must lie in the way the director seems to distant his characters from their audience. We never get closer to them than a middle shot. In a film where the close-up is as rigorously excluded from cinematic grammar as camera movement from the later work of Ozu, the characters' everyday lives seem to be presentad as an extension of their existance on stage to the extent that we are often left to guess at their feelings and emotions. I have written before of how fascinated I am to respond to the demands of directors such as Edward Yang and Hou Xiaoxian to connect with characters and situations when given the barest information. Director Jia Zhangke is obviously aiming at their oblique narrative style but somehow gives so little that by the end I felt I knew much more about the topography of Fenyang than of the characters that live there. For a film about the effect of historical change on individuals to be completely successful it needs to be the other way round.

Positives: A detailed look at what much of small town life in China looked and sounded like in the 1980's: government speakers constantly bombarding the citizens with announcements, party propaganda and tinny music, buildings made of grey mud-like brick--miles and miles of them, old bridges, and because of the season, few trees. It's grim, and so are the lives of the young people who want to do something with their lives other than wait for something to happen.

Negatives: Shots of landscapes and a few people who barely communicate go on for what seem like forever, and to someone used to the MTV school of constant image manipulation, these often gloomy meditations may make you wish to run screaming from the room; character relationships are poorly delineated (and that may be the filmmaker's point--in that atmosphere, they can't be!), and for my taste, there are not enough close-ups to bring the story home.

Platform is an honest, personal film about a time and place in China, and for many folks, that will make it worth watching. It would be a fascinating project if other talented film makers all over the world could spend some time in their own little favorite towns and come up with similar documents: Moabi, Gabon, for instance, or Amarante, Portugal, or La Mesa, California.

It is kind of sad to read these sad comments about being "bored" with this wonderful film, or "not understanding the characters".

This film is so full of atmosphere, and yes, emotion... but it is not shoved down your throat with typical Hollywood dramatic tricks... it is something you have to have the time and will to discover. That makes is so much closer and valuable.

Film IS about seeing, and the fact that there are hardly any close-ups in this film gives our eyes the freedom to discover things in the frame. It is also, I believe a much more respectful way to film actors generally.

This is a great film, I hope we see many more from this young director!

I found this to be an extremely understated film style, so emotionally detached throughout, a very oblique presentation, with little or no narrative, this played like a documentary with very little embellishments.

The film is set in the decade of the 1980's, which opens needing Communist Party approval for all State sponsored art, so kids are seen bored stiff at lifeless cultural performances singing the praises of China only in the most affirmative manner, something akin to pre-school exhibitions here, glorified by an always shining sun and by beautiful bright colors, but in this film, no one is fooled by this. Initial images are shot in near darkness or with the bleakest of light and there's a kind of feint, glowing aura surrounding such diminished light.

Initially there is obviously no heat or electricity in this cold, barren, wintry landscape, so each image features frost on the breath and the cold, desolate interior brick rooms, occasionally, people gather around a stove for warmth, they really don't want to move at all, bricks dominate the exteriors as well, the obvious poverty in the images is similar to many Iranian films, as there is absolutely nothing to grab the interest of the graduating high school class, who have no expectations of a better life, yet they are constantly seen interacting, but largely avoiding one another, smoking, staring off into the barren landscape, saying little or nothing, unbelievably detached from the rest of the world, and each other.



The imagery was quite unique, as this small town is, in fact, a rural Communist collective work farm, complete with required Party meetings where all are asked to voice their opinions or stand up to the critical discussions led by the Communist group leader, again, the decade opens with a criticism of individual dissent, like the wearing of bell-bottom pants, establishing an absolute need for individualism, which drives a whirlwind of changes within the Party, leading to the introduction of electricity to the most outer rural regions, and to concepts like privatization, owning your own farm, and, why not, western style pop music, which gives rise to an opportunity for this little group of would be artists to form a band and hit the road through some of the most desolate and empty terrain on the planet, always they travel on the back of the truck searching for the world outside.

Two of the most powerful images in the film, both very much in the Kiarostami-style end shot, a long, drawn out shot that by itself, reveals the story of the film...

There is a long shot of a group of rolling hills with nothing growing on them, round and bare, and the infamous truck winds it's way along a wind-swept, dirt road around a myriad of curves until it is finally close to the camera, but then the truck mysteriously stops, and turns around in the most deliberate and laborious manner before heading back into those rolling hills, while this is seen, the audience hears the sound of the truck radio providing a weather report, powerful, changing winds are heading their way...

There is a long, distant shot of this same, infamous truck and it appears to be stuck in the middle of nowhere, far off, in the distance, the sound of the engine gunning is all that's heard, but no wheels are turning, they ar e going nowhere, so there is a cut to the blue door of the truck, one of the artists climbs into the front seat and turns on the radio which plays the title song, "Platform," "We are waiting, our whole hearts are waiting, waiting forever..." In this unique moment, the first time rock music is heard in the film, the audience is made aware that from this barren desolation there are now "possibilities."

However, as the decade comes to a close, this image is contrasted against a later scene where the actual band plays this song, "Platform," and one can only describe it as laughable, the audience is throwing things at them, the lead singer attempts to go out into the crowd and touch hands but he is nearly beaten up until he retreats to the safety of the stage, yet still under the barrage of the audience, certainly this reflects the end of possibilities...

Yet another scene must be mentioned, one of their former girl friends who chose not to go on the road, but to stay at home, is seen alone in a bureaucratic office, again, dimly lit, she waters her plants in the corner, shuffles some papers around, but the music heard on the radio causes her to stir, she stops her routine, makes the briefest of moves as if she wants to dance, but stops herself, until this slowly evolves into one of the most beautiful traditional Chinese dances, alone, in the dark, dancing.

True to the peculiarity of this film, one character appears with the band, he has long black hair, and he's dressed all in black, the band manager tells him to get his lazy ass back to the group, as he's outside smoking a cigarette, one of the most prevalent images throughout the film is the constant smoking of cigarettes, but this guy never says a word to anybody, nor is he ever seen performing with the band, he just exists totally outside the universe of any known reality, later on, he is seen cutting his hair, this character is not seen in the entire film interacting with anyone, yet he is seen on the fringes definitely a unique character, but totally alone.

In many ways this is largely a wordless film, as the words are so meaningless, instead, eyes drift off into the distant landscape, and the sound of the film is filled with the noises of humans, street sounds, traffic, trucks, tractors, distant shouts or street chatter, radios, the noises of humans, this is really the theme of the film, the individuals are incidental, they come, they go, but the constant is the noise.