Melanie Thompson Film 350 Prof. Mokdad Liminal Space: The Social-historical Thresholds Occupied by Jia Zhangke’s The World By 2004 China had joined the World Trade Organization, won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics, and been selected to host the universal exposition in 2010. Carried by its relentless pursuit of modernization China had ascended to the world stage, but at what cost? This question is explored in Jia Zhangke’s appropriately titled The World. Taking place in Beijing’s World Park, the film follows the lives of migrant workers as their own quests for modernity come into conflict with the socio-economic structures that sustain China’s economic boom. The World is Jia’s first film to take place outside of his native province of Shanxi and brings his criticisms of Chinese modernization and contact with global culture from the rural context to the big city. Using an aestheticized realist style to depict the struggles of the urban underclass, The World fits neatly into the tradition of Chinese post-socialist filmmaking while simultaneously exhibiting a style and subject matter compatible with the international art film market. At the intersection of these two movements, one local, one global, The World goes beyond the model of a typical art film to satisfy a yearning for truth in a country that finds itself in the liminal space between communism and capitalism, and modernity and tradition. The World focuses on the story of two migrant workers: Zhao Xiao Tao and her boyfriend, Taisheng. Tao serves as the film’s primary protagonist, and the narrative follows her journey as she is exposed to the harsh realities facing migrant women in China’s modern capital. Tao is employed as a performer in Beijing’s World Park, where she dons an array of exotic costumes and performs at locations around the park and in the nightly exposition. Over the course of the film, Tao begins to see cracks in the spectacular facade created by the park. Her friend Anna, a Russian dancer, turns to prostitution in order to buy a plane ticket out, her co-worker sleeps with the park director in order to get a promotion, a young relative of Taisheng dies in a construction accident, and her boyfriend has an affair with another woman. The film ends with Tao and Taisheng being carried lifeless from their friend’s apartment after a fatal gas leak. In many respects, The World is a quintessential art film, displaying Jia’s tendency towards auteurism, cinephilia, and utilizing a loose, episodic narrative consistent with this mode. In addition to his consistent style, Jia builds intertextuality amongst his through the coincidental reappearance of actors and characters. The actress Zhao Tao, who stars in The World has also starred as various characters in every one of his films since Platform. The character Sanming, who makes a brief cameo in The World, creates a tangible connection between The World’s protagonists and those from Platform. Sanming also goes on to star in Jia’s next film Still Life. This intertextuality makes The World part of a distinct and interconnected body of work. Jia displays his cinephilia by referencing films outside his own. For example, The World’s middle chapter is a reference to Ozu Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story both in title and narrative (Richler). In addition to these art cinema characteristics, The World’s style also closely aligns with the Bazinian realism that became a popular trend on the festival circuit in the late 1990s (McGrath, 82). Jia’s use of long takes, long shots, location shooting, handheld camerawork, and ellipses are consistent with the observational realism employed by directors such as Abbas Kiarostami and Cristian Mungiu. His style draws upon a global legacy of New Wave cinemas, particularly Bazin’s own cinema verité (Lu, 178). Jia’s films also make use of financing and distribution channels consistent with international art cinema. The World is financed through international co-production, primarily amongst Jia’s Hong Kong based Xstream Films, Japan’s Office Kitano, and France’s Lumen Films. The film also received support from the French government’s World Cinema Aid Fund (Aide aux cinéma du monde) (Richler). Likewise, the film travels the film festival circuit, premiering at the Venice Film Festival, and is distributed by non-domestic companies, Zeitgeist Films in the US, and Film Festival, and is distributed by non-domestic companies, Zeitgeist Films in the US, and France’s Celluloid Dreams internationally. With respect to his style and auteurism Jia appears to be is a typical art film director, however, in the Chinese context, these two traits are motivated by a specific and widely felt need to respond to China’s turbulent past and present. Jia’s filmmaking emerged in a wave of post-socialist realism and documentary filmmaking whose “subject matter and stylistic orientations...are inseparable from the deep social and cultural transformation occurring in China today” (Lu, 177). The documentary and post-socialist realism movements in China emerged, in part, as a response to the social realist films of the Mao era. These films were characterized by their portrayal of an ideological reality as opposed to a documented one. “The postsocialist realist films of the 1990s are thus imbued with the faith that just going out into public with a camera and capturing the unvarnished street life found there serves to unmask ideology while documenting the realities of contemporary China.” (McGrath, 85). Another response to the socialist filmmaking of Mao’s China was the emergence of individualism. Jia’s auteurism may be seen as an alignment with international art cinema but it is also a renunciation of the collectivist mentality of Mao’s China. In Mao’s China individual expression was suppressed in favor of the communal perspective, so presenting an individual vision was to seek liberation (Lu, 183). Thus, Jia and other Chinese sixth generation filmmakers answer a different call than auteurs in other countries, particularly in Europe. Their burden is not to maintain the country’s cultural integrity, but to somehow address the unhealed scars of the cultural revolution. The other film movement to which the sixth generation against which the sixth generation developed is the fifth generation. Though some notable fifth generation works aimed to critique Chinese society through historical allegory, many were lavish costume dramas or wuxia pian genre films aimed at breaking into the global commercial film market. Where international art cinema is defined against Hollywood, it is also important to take into account this dynamic within China. Eschewing continuity editing, genre, stars, and what they saw as orientalist content, Jia along with other sixth generation filmmakers sought to capture the truth of present day China. Where fifth generation filmmakers portrayed China’s beautiful landscapes and historic tales, the sixth generation captures the gritty lives of China’s grassroots people. Where many fifth-generation films had large budgets and studio support, the sixth generation took on an amateur lens. The motivation behind Jia’s content, he explains was that in all the films he had seen in college, none documented the Chinese reality he knew (Tweedle, 284). Many sixth- generation directors, including Jia, find their inspiration for filmmaking in their experience growing up in “the dystopian moment” of post Mao China and their films “are about the disillusionment and dejection of underclass urban youth in a world without heroes or clearly defined ideals” (Lu, 178). While their amateur style did emerge as a response to commercial filmmaking, it did not come solely from a need to create intellectual auteurist films, it also came from a craving for representation and acknowledgement, a yearning altogether more specific and ultimately collective than typical art cinema could boast. Despite the fact that The World and its post-socialist peers satisfy a specifically Chinese need in both their subject matter and style, their sincerity is difficult to qualify without addressing the films’ foreign audiences and financing. Because of their gritty and often pessimistic subject matter, Jia’s films are critiqued for catering to Western audiences. By portraying the hardship and unfair working conditions of migrant workers in Beijing for example, Jia is accused of presenting a negative, and stereotypical view of Chinese oppressed by a totalitarian regime (McGrath, 107). Many suppose that his films are “banned in China” for similar reasons, a label which suggests more radical filmmaking along the lines of third cinema. However, the matter is more complicated than it may appear, and in order to assess The World fairly it is important to examine the reasons why it is Jia’s first film not to be banned in China. What is the significance of the label “banned in China?” The most obvious reason for a film to be banned is that its content is overly critical for the Chinese government’s. However, for the amateur filmmaker, making films underground also comes with several benefits. The process of having a film legitimized by Chinese censors is an arduous three step process, and a film having a film legitimized by Chinese censors is an arduous three step process, and a film submitted for approval cannot be entered in foreign film festivals or released domestically without permission (Jaffee). By making films outside the system, amateur directors have to jump through fewer hoops in order to realize their projects, furthermore, the label “banned in China” makes the films more marketable to foreign financiers and film festivals (Jaffee). The fact that Jia’s content and style changed very little between his illegitimate and legitimate films -- despite the fears of fans and critics alike -- indicates that either the censors have loosened their restrictions, or Jia no longer requires his underground credentials to obtain funding.