User reviews

"An Elephant Sitting Still" is a Chinese film crafted by Bo Hu, a new and impressively clever director, which chose to leave our dark and lonely world. And after watching his 4 hour film, which focus on one intense day in the lives of 4 individuals, who are living in a "wasteland" where crime and sadness and a constant dimness have the upper hand and they are searching for a way to escape from their troubles and the noises and the past. But will things change if we just go to another place or will confusion and lonelyness and animosity keep to exist in every step we make?

This film is astounding for many reasons. Firstly, despite its huge runtime of 230 minutes, the film is never of zero interest and has a immersive tone that lets you to grow with the characters and feel their emotions. The first hour may feel kind of slow beacause we do not get a lot of interactions and we basically meet our characters, their tragic lives and their hideous world they are struggling to live in. But, after they interact with each other and their stories crush onto one another, the film beacomes a true tour de force but it still remains delicate and quiet.

Also, the way the creator has built this enviroment is stylisticly satisfying and meanwhile it works well for the movies theme and for the characters. We are introduced to a dull, meaningless and dangerous pile of houses and desperate souls. We barely see a glanse of colour. Everything is grey, lifeless, moody and light only enters the frame from small windows or from cloudy skies. You probably thinking that this film is the most pessimistic thing on earth, but as it turns out, it isn't. Hu Bo is trying to be realistic and not a pessimist. Showing a dark dark world does not mean you are a pessimist, but instead it is a statement of how lowwe have fallen and of the tragedy of it all. It is what it is. The world is cruel and blunt, a bunch of kids bulling another one, students posting mean twits for a girl, an old man looking out of the window, a broken couple walking inside a train-tunnel. All of this helps us get into the characters emotions and understand them.

The acting is superb. Every actor feels like a real person.The characters are human and they are striking for salvation, but do not accept that these are their lives and they have to move on with reality even if it is bad. Each one of them is trappedi in their own heads. A man of guilt searching for forgiveness and love. A teenager trying to deal with an incient which brings danger to his life. A girl wanting to find a place to feel happy, but when she does everybody is judjing her. An elder man suffering from loss and trying to copmerhend that he is aging and decay, like all of us. In their eyes we see the same pain, the same sadness and the same grand desire of a better life, another situation, a small place to forget and rest, an elephant sitting still. They talk and play and observe and ache and get hurt and laugh and there is a beauty and intrigue to their lives.

The soundtrack is really one of a kind. At first, I really did not get it and it sounded really "off", but soon I started to understand it's purpose and I can actually say that it is a really distinct music and whenever I connect it to the film. The band is actualy is called Hualun and I heard some of other tracks and theyare actually pretty good.

And funally, the one and only reason why this film is so signicant in the world of art and also the reason to why I wrote this review is the fact that this film- is deeply honest. For me, honesty is the key to an enjoyable and meaningful film. Nowadays, every film feels like the same, uninteresting and repetative selling product. Every production company adds something for the fans to "Marvel" at, we get millions of toys and marchendise of dolls and clothes and they get more than a billion of money... but where is the soul, the authenticityc of the creators? To me , when I see a film want to "meet" the person behind it and take a look at his emotions and thoughts. The director must BE the film and the film MUST be the director. Cinema is made for people who want to speak, but use their films and not words, in order to express themselves. Hu Bo isa true director and artist and human.

He was a man who felt that the truly precious tihng are hidden in the cracks of the world and emphasizes that thisi is not pesimistic and if people leave their texts and fake happy realities behind and understand this, they may feel awe in front of the principles that define life.

He managed to use his experiences and create a story which purely portrays his inner self. It is like we met him and then he left. I have seen a lot of movies and only two directors have proven that they can make a film which shows their inner nature. The one is Charlie Kaufman, one of the best flmmakers working today, known for his work in "Synedoche, New Work" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", two of my favourite films. He once said that he feels sad because most directors do the smae job with politicans, trying to sell their works with saying and compaigns and they become pretenders and their films feel like a bunch of nothing. He is a filmmaking genius and you better check all of the iflms he had written and directed. The other one is Hu Bo. He is true and honest.

He is an ARTIST and he made a unique trumph for every person who walks on this world. It is beautiful and dark and sad and strange and complex and emotional and raw and honest and...

Thank you, Hu Bo.

My Rating : 8/10

'An Elephant Sitting Still' - what can be said about this masterpiece? At 3 hours 50 minutes it's not something one can rush through. It requires patience and empathy from the viewer. There's no way any normal moviegoer will not find it boring and dull at times but that's where you've gotta find that right mood and environment to really appreciate this gem. This is definitely an acquired taste.

I am a huge fan of movies that deal with inner torment and involve the viewer's absolute trust and surrender. Cries and Whispers, Ida, Mouchette, Stray, The Piano Teacher, In My Father's Den are some of my favourites when it comes to this type of cinema and now 'An Elephant Sitting Still' can be added to this list as well.

Sad to know that the director is no more. R.I.P. and thank you for sending this message out to the world.

I cannot comprehend how this movie can be so beautifully shot, staged and acted, while on the other hand depicting the ugliest but so true to life experiences a human could ever possibly encounter. Not a single spark of hope ever comes up during the entire film, every character experiences his own version of hell while trying to find meaning in their appently meaningless lifes. Nobody smiles, everyone wears a thick winter coat.. even inside as if they need an extra shell to protect them from other humans. And yet, after four hours you are left with the urge to tell the world that there is still something worth living for. This movie is a plea for more kindness and humanity, although it is almost never showing either of them itself. A movie has never affected me so deeply like this one. I will never forget this experience and I am sorry for the directors relatives.. they, the Chinese Cinema and we all have lost a true filmmaking genius.

Few debuts are this good. Throughout four hours, Hu Bei creates an overwhelminly human and sensitive film, creating characters to which we deeply sympathise and connect with. The more the film moves long, the more impactful it becomes, and soon enough even the smallest actions, the most simple scenes become huge, due to the sheer emotional investment the spectator has. This works mostly for these reasons: Bei's camera, which is always close to the characters, following them in long, some times astonishing shots; the actors, all of them astounding; the long running time, which gives time not just to explore each character, but also for the viewer to just spend time with these people, who we love to care about so deeply. Melancholic but not sad, deeply moving but never sentimental, An Elephant Sitting Still doesn't feel bigger than life: it feels like life, period. To call it a masterpiece would be an understatement.

It might be slow, but not boring. Plus, when it picks up, it really picks up. It's beautifuly directed and it's hard to take your eyes away from it.

I love the atmosphere of this film. It all feels wierdly familiar. I can feels the cold air. I can smell the environment. The closing scenes in particular I think will evoke an odd sense of nostalgia in a lot of people. The fact that almost every scene is shot in long takes makes it even more immersive.

It can drag quite a bit at times. With a runtine of almost four hours and a pace so slow it would make Andrei Tarkovsky jealous, it was always going to drag, but it never stops being completely entrancing and heartbreaking.

This is a must-watch.

"An Elephant Sitting Still" is clearly a very personal film, a little too personal perhaps. It's a four-hour cry of anguish from a director who sadly took his own life shortly after the film was completed. No wonder then that the film has such a preoccupation with suicide.

Knowing the film's backstory makes it hard to be critical of it, but if I'm being honest I found my patience greatly tried by this one. It's misery porn at its most miserable, and it simply did not need to be so long. There's no break to the relentless drabness of it, and it's so depressing that it almost teeters into comical. After awhile, when faced with something as downbeat as this, you have no choice but to start finding it absurd that so much misery (including no fewer than three deaths) could possibly land on four interrelated people in the space of one day.

It seems heartless and pointless to criticize "An Elephant Sitting Still" for being undisciplined given the fate of its director, but that's what it is. It's an internal monologue from the perspective of someone who's clearly not well, and it teases us with the heartbreaking potential of its young filmmaker, because formally it's a very impressive movie, but it simply didn't have anything to say to me other than life is a pointless wallow in despair, which is not at all what I believe.

Grade: B

I just watched 'An Elephant Sitting Still' and all I've got to say is 'mesmerizing'. Such a rhythmic flow to each and every scene, not only visually stunning but the dialog and sound track were amazing, and that combination effortlessly flowed scene to scene. The sound track at times seemed like it was just pulled right out of the background noise of the scenery and then mixed into a rhythm and fed back into the beat of the movie and flipping vice-versa.....just brilliant. 'An Elephant Sitting Still' is a true masterpiece of creative genius, reminding me a lot of Bela Tarr films. Very long takes, endlessly long, and with endless dialog at times, that almost seems improvised, and just as endless emptiness at times, head spinning. Qian's camera follows the characters around closely, circling them, moving between them and flowing like water around them, almost like another character, and at times I swore it had dialog as if to be another character itself...lol. The camera work was some of the best ever. Whoever drove that steadi-cam earned their pay for sure. For a long 4 hr movie that really didn't have a plot, it never lost my attention or made me fast forward. This was more of a theme type movie, a day in the life, with lots of characters to follow as they intermingle and meander through what seem to be deeply agonizing lives in search of something better or simply left content in their misery. All of the actors were spot on and it seemed like real life was being filmed and put up on the screen. This movie goes right on the same list as 'Satantango', 'Werckmeister Harmonies', 'Capernaum', 'The Tiger: An Old Hunter's Tale', and 'The World of Kanako'. Very sad the director took his own life after making this film.

If someone asked me to pick just one film as my best for the past decade, this would definitely be my first choice

The first and last film from "Bo Hu", is one of the great chinese film from mainland china.

When people lost the reason of living, when they feel there's nothing for them. The world they loved, the people they believed is no more there, the life is meaningless. The only think they can think is to die, this film show that stage of four peoples. How they find new meaning of life.

After watching this film I couldn't believed It's Chinese film. The storytelling, the cinematography, the acting, all the sectors is so unique that I just couldn't believed It's Chinese film.

As far as I can say it's the year best film.

There are several reasons why you will not forget this film if you have had the patience to sit through the 4 hours of its slow running time. One of them will be to wonder if the long film was worth your while.

The director Bo Hu only made this feature film in his entire life before he committed suicide at age 29. The film is based on his book that he wrote under a pen-name. With a book and a feature film to his credit, Bo Hu evidently still felt trapped.

All the characters are innocent but nihilistic to the core caught within China's social "no-win" trap if you are not rich or have political connections. Nietzsche would have smiled at this film. There is no way out. Yet they hope optimistically for a better life. It is a curious film that ends up with stupid violent scenes as some recent award-winning films from China have. Nothing positive to take away here after 4 hours. The concept of the elephant sitting still is possibly positive, which is why four adults want to metaphorically see it. One positive takeaway in the indirect commentary on China today, rarely discussed in the media.

I had jokingly messaged a friend, in between watching the first and second halves, that the film made me want to either fall asleep or kill myself. The characters are not only miserable, but pathetic, self-involved, and lack any sense of joy, passion, wonder or love. The pace is excruciatingly slow, and at almost 4 hours, unreasonably long. I thought it was pretentiously depressing. On this last point, I guess I was wrong.

I was very sorry to find the dedication at the end of this film to the young writer/director Hu Bo, and to read later that he had committed suicide. But I cannot say I was surprised. In retrospect, I realized that the misery he depicted in this film reflects how he truly viewed the world. Poor man.

This might explain the awards and rave reviews, as Hu Bo's suicide makes people unable to judge the film dispassionately. It makes us realize that we are getting a sincere message from the mind of a clinically depressed man.

However, judging the film entirely on its own merits, I stand by my one star rating. It is excruciating to watch, and lacks any engaging character, or moments of entertainment, enlightenment, pleasure, or inspiration. Instead, it does the opposite, saying over and over that life is just agony, nothing else. Though it may have been his honest view, it is the very limited view of a sadly twisted mind. It is worse than nothing, it is harmful and untrue. People are not just wretched, selfish and nothing else, even if Hu Bo couldn't see it.

I am sorry I wasted 4 hours of my life on this, and I would never recommend this movie to anyone else.

It's not often that you get superb film viewing experiences like this, and with a nearly 4 hour runtime, it's worth every minute. This film doesn't rush anything, and allows you to deeply soak in the feelings and emotions of each character in the story as it slowly develops over the course of a single day.

The acting is also truly exceptional from every character. What a powerhouse cast. The listless expressions are as cold and bleak as the surrounding Northern Chinese city where the film is set.

The subtle soundtrack comes in at the perfect times throughout to provide a quaint accompaniment to certain scenes. A great study in minimalist sound design where less is so much more.

Most memorable was the cinematography here. Just gorgeous shots everywhere, and I can only imagine the amount of thought that went into piecing together this work of art. Truly exceptional work that should not be missed by any cinephile.

An Elephant Sitting Still (China, Hu Bo, 2018) - High rise apartment towers across the horizon, relentless walls of concrete, ceaseless din of traffic, consuming smog, darkness, indifferent eyes and a once wild elephant pacing back and forth in chains; modern China in a nutshell. Each character of An Elephant Sitting Still mirrors the gigantic nation. Confessions of pain met with hostility and suspicion, relationships without love, heartlessness, veiled threats, unhappiness and all characters - young and old, male and female - in limbo, alienated and alone.

After completing this bleak film the director, 29 years old, killed himself. It is a four-hour testament to what the lack of hope feels like. The scenes, characters and stories melt into each other. The camerawork is up close and personal, and it seems like a continuous take. The ambient sound of traffic is occasionally broken by calming electronic music. Having recently been to China I experienced some of the concrete, indifference and cruelty envisioned here by Hu Bo. Yet I also witnessed wonders and beauty in the natural world, city streets and people's hearts that provide perspective and counter points to all the misery. In this sense An Elephant Sitting Still is a wakeup call to what we might become unless we can harness our better instincts and natures. As such the film is wonderful, insightful and mesmerizing. Four and a half of five stars.

A beautiful barnburner by a budding auteur, gone too soon. The director Hu Bo committed suicide in 2017 soon after finishing filming this and it's difficult to parse that fact from any viewing/reading of An Elephant Sitting Still. Hu Bo's death came under cloudy circumstances allegedly related to conflicts with the producers of the film. He was just 29. This was his first film after writing two novels also released in 2017. We're left with a four-hour cut of a slow and sprawling, tonally bleak story told through the vantage point of several characters dealing with big philosophical problems. Given what little information there is coming out of China about Hu Bo, his life, his art, his process, his death, we're left with pretty much just the 234 minutes here. And while that's a lot, and for many perhaps, too much, it's just a fragment in reality. Consider the fleeting nature of time, be it with lovely long shots captured by handheld cameras set to a post-rock score, or by the real mystery of a suicide by a young, talented person. This films weaves together the fabric of four characters over the course of a single day, and in doing so creates something much larger for us to ponder.

Recently we read a lot in the newspapers about the trade war between the US and China and the fact that it won't take long before China is the biggest economy in the World.

In "An elephant sitting still" the emphasis is not so much on the economic performance of China but on the environmental disaster that is taking place. The film is set in a dreary landscape, fog is always present and grey is the dominating colour.

There is not only an environmental disaster going on but also a social one. Most of the people we meet in this film are selfish, indifferent, corrupt and harsh. Maybe they weren't born that way, but in the society portrayed by this movie, in order to survive you can't afford te be sensitive. After finishing this movie the (debuting) director committed suicide. The direct cause was a conflict with the producer over the length of the film, but after seeing the film it is difficult to seperate his suicide from the totally dark image of Chinese society in the film.

"An elephant sitting still" is an ensemble film. We follow the lives of four main characters during one day. Contrary to for example "Magnolia" (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson) there is no redemption at a deathbed at the end of the film here. One main character compares his life with a garbage bin. The older he gets, the more garbage he collects.

In "Magnolia" there is a mythical element at the end in the form of a shower of frogs. "An elephant sitting still" has its own mythical element. At the eind of the film we hear the trumpeting of the elephant (without seeing the animal).

Up to that moment there was only talk about a circus elephant that went on strike and did nothing else than sitting in his cage. It is up to each viewer to interpret the symbolic meaning of this elephant, but in China an elephant is seen as a wise animal and the lethargy to wich he had fallen can be seen as a protest agianst the harshness of the society portrayed in the film.

For me there was clear link between the elephant in "An elephant sitting still" and the whale in "Werckmeister Harmoniak" (2000, Bela Tarr). A link that beomes even more obvious when I red (after seeing the film) that Bela Tarr was one of the guest teachers of directer Bo Hu.

My pick of the 21st century so far. The sense of the oppression of every moment is captured perfectly. Everything about it expresses perfectly the tedium and bleakness of life. Unflinching. Hu Bo is an artist not afraid to commit a vision to the screen. Not for the faint hearted.

Four hours is too long for me to watch a film all at once, so I went two alternate days to watch the first and second halves of the film, and neither of the two days I came out fully convinced of what I had seen. I enjoyed the style, the introversion mood that permeates all the scenes, depicted in close shots of the characters' heads with a usually blurry background; it seems the intention is that you perceive the world through the minds of the characters, yet this is a failed attempt often since the situational context does not manage to tell you much about what's inside the characters' minds. Conversations do not manage to solve this problem and to provide some more information on each character's perspectives, they are scarce and tend to be superficial, adding little for the comprehension of their attitudes to life (bleak without exception). This is one of the main problems of this film, the poor dialogues, although maybe a good deal is lost in the translation and they are more meaningful in Chinese.

Basically the film brings together a group of interrelated personages which experience (and sometimes cause) in the course of a single day all the imaginable sufferings a human being can pass through: loneliness, family tensions and conflicts, indiference from others and your own relatives, public exposure of awkward secrets, accidental killing, death of a relative, suicide, adultery, lies, scams, violence in different degrees, including shooting... Obviously there is no realistic intention in the development of the plot, instead all these misfortunes are piled up together to explicitly show how awful life is, something that is also bluntly expressed by some of the characters during the film... I would have expected this was transmited with some more subtetly.

Unfortunately we will not be able to see more films from this director, sadly he decided to follow the fate of one of the characters (at least) in the film. He seems to have fully exposed his view of life in this film, and then act accordingly. May he find now the harmony of mind he apparently could not get during his short life, and rest in peace.

It's a model that's hard to live up to. Unscrupulously piling up meaningless fixed-frame lenses stretched the story of one hour's exhaustion to four hours. Several problematic families are depicted at the beginning, but the final problem is still there, because this film only needs the oppressive atmosphere, not to reflect or solve some problems. Does this film have love? Maybe, but it's not clear, and it shouldn't be so.

This one is a long long one. Four hours length, with a simple yet realistic story about people who see their lives being ruined and try to hope. I can't say that the story kept me interested throughout its huge length. Sometimes it felt like nothing was happening. It was like watching a documentary. It did pick up eventually. The ending was kind of odd too. But overall the performances were really good from all the characters who's lives were tangled together somehow. So, five out of ten.