We are presented with a clip from ‘Pickpocket,’ introducing Zhang-ke’s singular style, his eye for behaviors and localisms. We follow the main character’s journey, on bus and foot, into town.
“For this, I employed a long take — I studied Eisenstein’s editing theory but that is not something I use in my films! When I grew up, many films in China were propagandistic and subjective in conveying certain information. When I started making my own films, I wanted more distance between me and the audience, more room, an objective approach. I wanted the audience to feel equal, to empower the audience, to contribute their own life experience and impressions. I wanted to convey life as a certain way of existing, but I give no answers to it.”
“It is the first time in Chinese cinema that the lead character is a pickpocket — it was inconceivable before. I watched “Bicycle Thieves.” I was interested in people with small shortcomings. In many independent films, they invoked rebellion by using dirty words and expletives. I felt that wasn’t enough — rebelling in terms of language was not appealing to me. I wanted to show people who had been neglected, who were not allowed on cinema screens. In literature, in Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black,” with Julien Sorel for example, we have these types of characters who reflect the spirit of their times.”
Was he nervous about the film authorities, given that he was winning prizes and playing at big festivals? The film bureau sat him down for tea one day — after his third film — and he was forced into the official system.
“They said I had had a great impact on international relations and other countries, so that was nice. I suddenly felt like this big important influential person who had an impact on cultural exchange. But they gave an order that forbade me from making films, but I still came to Rotterdam and made preparations for my second film. I didn’t give it a lot of thought because I hadn’t made any mistakes and hadn’t done anything wrong, so I thought I’d continue as I had done.”
His following films, ‘Platform’ and ‘Unknown Pleasures,’ couldn’t be shown in China. They instead existed through pirate DVDs, some sold in brown paper bags with the titles written on. They sold well.
“I was a big celebrity in the pirate DVD market. One day the owner of a shop said I should go back that afternoon for new pirated copies of ‘Platform’. They would be available then, and there was no other way to watch these types of films, although I made big efforts to show these films at universities.”
We are shown a clip of ‘Still Life,’ in a sequence that overlooks the construction of The Three Gorges Dam. As the demolition of old housing occurs, we watch a woman search for her missing husband, with clear parallels to ‘Ash Is Purest White.’ It is social commentary, unlike any documentary.
“Since the ‘90s we have had a responsibility to reflect people’s lives and people’s experiences. You might say that now this is normal, but before this was not customary in China. This was due to where we came from: years of propaganda filmmaking and storytelling. The individual and ordinary people became more important. It has become completely accepted.”
“You can’t film people in isolation — you have to incorporate the changes in society. Our lives are influenced by whatever happens in society. We cannot avoid these changes. People say that the arts shouldn’t talk about society and politics but I think that’s plain wrong, as you cannot divorce the two. ‘Still Life’ shows the biggest engineering project in the world, in which millions of people had to move. The scenery was changing and artifacts, history, and culture were affected by this project. I had to make a film before the flooding took place. There was only a limited amount of time, so there was no way I could approach it the way I do normally — by writing a script, by making money — because the town would have disappeared.”
“I spent four or five evenings in the hotel with my assistants to write the script for this film. I would act out all of these scenes, with the assistants taking notes. It was a very special experience for me: the first film with surreal elements cropping up, because the changes are so absurd and momentous. These elements seem to go against logic. I was using a small digital camera. We didn’t know if it would suffice, as we didn’t have lighting. We had to film otherwise this town would not be there anymore. I’m grateful for digital technology that let us film so quickly. It was hardest for Zhao Tao, who played the main character. She had to come in from Beijing after I called her, and we had to start shooting. She said, ‘What’s my role?’ I said, ‘Don’t worry, walk past the houses being demolished and we will shoot this.’ And she was in a daze. We captured lots of that. Afterward, we could start working on a feature film and a story for the film.”
“It was all spur of a moment, Zhao Tao the borrowed clothes in the film from a girl in the hotel. She noted of her character that she had come all the way from Jiangxi: ‘I don’t have any luggage, isn’t that strange?’ We said ‘OK, you can carry a bottle of mineral water with you.’ As soon as she carried this bottle we knew that this was exactly the way she should look. My films started to pick up in pace after this because of my interest in martial arts cinema. Zhao Tao holds the water bottle like a sword. Like heroes in martial arts cinema hold a sword to enact revenge, her character holds the water bottle to find her husband as an act of love. The bottle determines the identity of this character. When filming ‘Ash Is Purest White,’ Zhao Tao said, ‘I can do more things with this water bottle,’ and she wielded it in a way that far exceeded my expectations.”
Released six years, ‘A Touch of Sin,’ is a four-part story that shows the development of Zhang-ke’s films, at least in scope and budget. There remains continuity with his early work.
“There is a natural progression. Jiangxi is very important, as are the questions and decisions in peoples’ lives, these that change over the year. I had four protagonists because I wanted to show something common. News spread of violent incidents across the country. Violence had become very common, so I wanted to show four areas of China, from north to south, to east to west, and four people to express this topic.”
At this point, the audience is quickly ushered out, implored to watch “Ash Is Purest White,” and offered no further opportunity for discussion. With Jiang-ke, this stretching and compressing of time seem apt.
The 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from Jan 23–Feb 3.
