Generazione romantica

One of Jia Zhangke's best movies. The best of his works are mainly those documentary-like films with deep reflections on modern China and its ordinary, often invisible people caught in the tide of the country's transformation over the past four decades. I spent over 30 years in China, from 1980s to early 2010s. You may not find dramatic plots in this movie, but many of the scenes reflect what I experienced and witnessed there. This movie feels like a collage, bringing back memories of my life over the past three decades.

Most of the scenes feel both real and surreal from today's perspective-especially when you think about how fast and dramatically Chinese society has evolved, along with how people's lifestyles and mindsets have shifted with the tides of time.

The most striking thing about this film is seeing the natural aging of the actors, but the collage of the different projects into a single film is rather shaky and risks turning off several people at the start of the film. Several bold choices from the directors, including the use of intertitles and what appear to be images taken from surveillance cameras. When we get to the end of the film, we can be moved and consider this project as a good film, especially with the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters, but the first part prevents us from being very generous for the rating of the work. Good use of music (it's more of a musical film than a dialogue film). Good soundtrack. Good finale.

What I like about Jia Zhangke is that his works of Chinese cinema is highly interesting and something that feels so different to any other filmmakers in China. In many ways, using strange digital camera approaches, approaches on themes, the music, the characters and setting. This movie feels like a statement of his career, in a documentary and fiction fashion, it's a mesmerizing experience.

Using archive footage and blending both non-linear fiction and non-fiction, Zhangke presents a melancholic and avant-garde narrative and atmosphere that is filled with wonderful presentations and themes explored. Presenting characters, performances, music, and dialogue that feels realistic and almost as if you are observing the daily lives of an individual and nature of human beings.

Zhao Tao continues to shine with her natural performance and language with each scene she is displayed on, the soundtrack choices are interesting, and the whole fiction vs nonfiction scenario, while it will put off many viewers, I found it to be interesting and a great experiment of a story.

I don't suggest this as the first movie to watch for Jia Zhangke though, but I say it's amazing.

This one is the real deal; our esteemed director (all of his projects are foremost "director's films") is one of the greats whom you can discuss in the same breath as Vigo and Varda without puffery.

Jia has a tremendous feel for the Chinese people and is able to capture the textures and rhythms of life there like few others I know. It's this humanity and curiosity, combined with incisive wit and subtle indictment of hypocrisy, that allow him to sidestep censorship of politicized content.

This movie could have been a slight and indulgent scrapbook, but the cast and creative teams--working over an extended schedule to make 'Boyhood' blush--keep the whole thing pitch perfect. Like that earlier milestone film, it's a movie almost without any big moments... and yet there is a vast catharsis that fills in during its latter half.

By the time it gets to the last shot, which I now count among my favorite final shots in cinema history, it achieves a sweeping and yet deeply personal sense of determination in the face of the unknown future we all face. I recommend you see it with a lot of people at a cinema.

I never tell about the plot on my review, you can find it everywhere! I watched this movie without knowing Nothing about it. So i thought "oh he is very clever ,he is using lots of old stock film to make it look like it was shot 20 years ago" and I thought "uhm this movie is way more experimental and artsy compared to his other movies". I watched this movie because I really enjoyed Mountain Might Depart and Ash Is Purest White and A Touch of Sin. And this one feels more like a collections of scenes, different styles all put together. It has somehow a dreaming, floating quality, it feels like a documentary and then it is also fiction, But it works, mostly because Zhao Tao has this magical presence on the screen and you look at her wondering what will she do next. After I finished I went online looking at reviews and discovered it is actually made with material the director shot before. If you are looking at this title it means that you are already open and ready to watch something different from USA mainstream movies. So I would definitely recommend this.