CHINA / JAPAN / FRANCE – 131 MIN – COLOR – 1.33 / 1.85 / 2.39 – 5.1 – 2015 1 SYNOPSIS DIRECTORS’ NOTE China, 1999. In Fenyang, childhood friends Liangzi, a coal miner, and Zhang, the It’s because I’ve experienced my share of ups and downs in life that I wanted to make owner of a gas station, are both in love with Tao, the town beauty. Tao eventually Mountains May Depart. marries the wealthier Zhang and they have a son he names Dollar. This film spans the past, the present and the future, going from 1999 to 2014 and then to 2025. 2014. Tao is divorced and her son emigrates to Australia with his business China’s economic development began to skyrocket in the 1990s. Living in this surreal magnate father. economic environment has inevitably changed the ways that people deal with their emotions. The impulse behind this film is to examine the effect of putting financial Australia, 2025. 19-year-old Dollar no longer speaks Chinese and can barely considerations ahead of emotional relationships. If we imagine a point ten years communicate with his now bankrupt father. All that he remembers of his mother into our future, how will we look back on what’s happening today? And how will we is her name… understand “freedom”? Buddhist thought sees four stages in the flow of life: birth, old age, sickness and death. I think the ultimate point of this film is to say: Whatever times we live through, none of us can avoid experiencing those stages, those difficult moments. Mountains may depart, relationships may endure. Jia Zhangke (April 2015) 2 3 AT THE MID-POINT: There’s no real science-fiction aspect to the chapter set in 2025, but it does contain some interesting predictions, such as transparent tablet devices and the triumph of INTERVIEW WITH JIA ZHANGKE vinyl records over CDs. How much did you think about future trends and technology? And why did you choose Australia? You’ve often focused on China’s rapid social and economic changes, and in Platform Is 2025 that far from us? Not really. It’s only a decade away. I told myself at the outset you followed your characters across a decade. How has your thinking about these that this would not be sci-fi, but a film depicting people’s emotional lives in the near issues evolved? And how did you come to the three-part “Past-Present-Future” future. As now, people in 2025 will probably pretty much rely on the internet for structure of this film? information and communication. Our art director is a big fan of devices like tablets I am 45 years old now, which means I’ve accumulated plenty of memories but still have and smartphones, and he collects futuristic conceptual designs. We came up with the plenty to look forward to. I’m standing at this mid-point in life, observing the present, idea of transparent digital devices together, on the basis of those concepts. I know remembering the past and imagining the future. After A Touch of Sin I felt an urgent about the back-to-vinyl trend, but vinyl records are basically a reminder of the past for need to make a film about emotions. Chinese society today is very focused on wealth me. They have disappeared from most people’s lives. Young people mostly download creation, in sync with the rapid economic developments. And the new technologies music to their mobiles and computers from the internet. It seems that sales of records which economic development has brought us, such as the internet and high-speed as physical objects won’t last much longer, but I believe that vinyl record albums will trains, are also changing the ways we feel and express our emotions. still be around in 2025, just like paper books. There’s a line in Mountains May Depart: I often find myself wondering if I’ll feel regretful about this moment when I’m ten years “some things cannot be destroyed by time.” older. Life is a one-time thing for all of us. Each generation has to face the age-old problems as brand-new issues. In recent years, emigration has become a hot issue in I actually thought about setting the ‘2025’ chapter in North America, in a city like China. Many young couples choose to take their children abroad for a better life and Vancouver, Toronto or New York with a large Chinese-immigrant community. I opted education. Two years ago, as I travelled with A Touch of Sin to countries like the USA, for Australia because it’s in the southern hemisphere. Even though it only takes eight Canada and Australia, I made contact with many émigré Chinese families, especially hours to fly from Shanghai to Perth, on Australia’s west coast, it is still the other side of the ones from Shanxi. I was startled to see how younger Chinese émigrés live their the planet. The hot summer down-under coincides with China’s deep winter. The huge lives. Many of them don’t speak the Shanxi dialect, some don’t speak Chinese at all. contrast in seasons gives me a feeling of great distance. The film’s characters exile A language barrier has appeared, disrupting communication between parents and themselves to a place towards the end of the sky, and it feels almost impossible that children. Is this the kind of family relationship we want? they can ever return. The fateful decision that sparks the film’s story is Tao’s choice of Zhang Jinsheng rather than Liangzi as her husband. Practically, her choice makes good sense. But it proves Like the beginning and ending of A Touch of Sin, this story takes you back to Shanxi very damaging at the emotional level, for all concerned. How do you see her choice? – specifically to Fenyang, the town where you were born. Aside from your personal Tao faces two tough decisions in the story. One is her choice of husband and the feelings for the place, do you see Fenyang as a kind of microcosm of China in the 21st other is giving up custody of her son to her ex-husband. I think her choice of partner century? is primarily emotional. Zhang Jinsheng obviously expresses his feelings better than Like the beginning and ending of A Touch of Sin, this story takes you back to Shanxi his rival; he’s a man of action and more romantic than the miner Liangzi. In a young – specifically to Fenyang, the town where you were born. Aside from your personal woman’s eyes, such qualities may be attractive enough. And Zhang Jinsheng’s financial feelings for the place, do you see Fenyang as a kind of microcosm of China in the 21st prospects definitely play a part in her choice. For example he owns a car, which century? immediately brings her closer to modern freedoms. They can drive to the Yellow River From my first films Xiao Wu and Platform to A Touch of Sin, my hometown Fenyang has to see fireworks. So I do not rule out the material temptation in love. always had special resonances in my films. But there’s a different specific reason each But I think the harder decision lies in the ‘2014’ chapter when she has divorced Zhang time I shoot there. When I set Xiao Wu there, I saw Fenyang as a small inland city going Jinsheng and agreed that her son can live with him. In a sense she’s being pragmatic through transformation. You could take it as a microcosm of all cities in China longing about this. As a mother, she must have wished to keep her child. At the same time for development and opening-up. Most Chinese people were living in cities like she knows that she’ll go on living in an area where there are few resources and that. And although it’s located in the basin of the Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese opportunities, while Zhang Jinsheng has already moved to Shanghai, the country’s civilization, few filmmakers had ever shot there. financial capital. The material considerations seem paramount. For instance, Zhang’s When it came to A Touch of Sin, there were other reasons as well. Shanxi has a large wealth pays for Dollar to go to an international school, where he can learn English number of ancient buildings which are still now part of everyday life. The stories in before going abroad. But this very choice guarantees Tao’s loneliness in 2025. It’s in the A Touch of Sin remind me of the stories in the classical novel The Water Margin, also ‘2025’ chapter that materialist thinking is challenged. I believe that when Tao reaches known as Outlaws of the Marsh. When we see modern people surrounded by ancient her fifties in 2025, she must have second thoughts about her choice, not only because buildings, it helps me bring out a precise theme: violence is an age-old problem that’s she hasn’t seen her son for more than a decade but also because the boy grows up been with us since the start. For me, Fenyang’s visual appearance almost subliminally in Australia and lacks a mother’s love. Mountains May Depart does not end with a maps the classical novel onto the film’s stories. mother-and-son reunion, but the audience may imagine what Tao and Dollar would Choosing Fenyang again for Mountains May Depart springs first and foremost from have to say to each other if they did meet again.