MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART EEN FILM VAN JIA ZHANKGE China, Japan, Frankrijk | 2015 | 131 minuten | Nederlandse ondertiteling VANAF 24 MAART IN DE BIOSCOOP DISTRIBUTIE PUBLICITEIT De film wordt in de Benelux uitgebracht door Voor meer informatie over de film kunt u contact opnemen met: CINEMIEN FILM INCOMPANY Amstelijk 10 Anne Kervers 1074 HP Amsterdam e: [email protected] Nederland t: 06-16274537 www.cinemien.nl Petra van Horssen [email protected] e: [email protected] +31(0)20-5776010 t: 06-55574720 SYNOPSIS MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART spant over drie decennia. Het begint in 1999, wanneer in Fenyang, China, het mooiste maar ook meest verlegen meisje van het dorp trouwt met de rijke, extraverte Zhang. Samen krijgen zij een zoon, genaamd Dollar. Vijftien jaar later scheiden de twee en emigreren vader Zhang en Dollar naar Australië. Nog eens elf jaar later spreekt Dollar nog nauwelijks Chinees en herinnert hij zich van zijn moeder enkel nog haar naam. Gedurende een kwart eeuw volgen we de personages van een radicaal veranderend China tot in Australië als een belofte op een beter leven, en de hoop, liefde en teleurstelling die het lot hen voorschotelt. Al sinds zijn speelfilmdebuut Xiao Wu (Pick Pocket)in 1997 toont regisseur Jia Zhangke zich een meester in het kritisch maar liefdevol ontleden van de Chinese maatschappij. In MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART legt hij de hartverscheurende effecten bloot van economische groei op familie, traditie en liefde. De film ging in wereldpremière op het filmfestival van Cannes in 2015 en ontving op het Filmfestival van San Sebastian de prijs voor Best European Film.de prijs voor Best European Film. DIRECTOR'S NOTE It’s because I’ve experienced my share of ups and downs in life that I wanted to make Mountains May Depart. This film spans the past, the present and the future, going from 1999 to 2014 and then to 2025. China’s economic development began to skyrocket in the 1990s. Living in this surreal 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 considerations ahead of emotional relationships. If we imagine a point ten years into our future, how will we look back on what’s happening today? And how will we 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) AT THE MID-POINT: INTERVIEW WITH JIA ZHANGKE You’ve often focused on China’s rapid social and economic changes, Tao faces two tough decisions in the story. One is her choice of and in Platform you followed your characters across a decade. How husband and the other is giving up custody of her son to her ex- has your thinking about these issues evolved? And how did you husband. I think her choice of partner is primarily emotional. Zhang come to the three-part “Past-Present-Future” structure of this film? Jinsheng obviously expresses his feelings better than his rival; he’s a I am 45 years old now, which means I’ve accumulated plenty of man of action and more romantic than the miner Liangzi. In a young memories but still have plenty to look forward to. I’m standing at this woman’s eyes, such qualities may be attractive enough. And Zhang mid-point in life, observing the present, remembering the past and Jinsheng’s financial prospects definitely play a part in her choice. imagining the future. After A Touch of Sin I felt an urgent need to For example he owns a car, which immediately brings her closer make a film about emotions. Chinese society today is very focused on to modern freedoms. They can drive to the Yellow River to see wealth creation, in sync with the rapid economic developments. And fireworks. So I do not rule out the material temptation in love. the new technologies which economic development has brought But I think the harder decision lies in the ‘2014’ chapter when she us, such as the internet and high-speed trains, are also changing the has divorced Zhang Jinsheng and agreed that her son can live with ways we feel and express our emotions. him. In a sense she’s being pragmatic about this. As a mother, she I often find myself wondering if I’ll feel regretful about this moment must have wished to keep her child. At the same time she knows when I’m ten years older. Life is a one-time thing for all of us. Each that she’ll go on living in an area where there are few resources generation has to face the age-old problems as brand-new issues. and opportunities, while Zhang Jinsheng has already moved to In recent years, emigration has become a hot issue in China. Many Shanghai, the country’s financial capital. The material considerations young couples choose to take their children abroad for a better life seem paramount. For instance, Zhang’s wealth pays for Dollar to go and education. Two years ago, as I travelled with A Touch of Sin to to an international school, where he can learn English before going countries like the USA, Canada and Australia, I made contact with abroad. But this very choice guarantees Tao’s loneliness in 2025. It’s many émigré Chinese families, especially the ones from Shanxi. I was in the ‘2025’ chapter that materialist thinking is challenged. I believe startled to see how younger Chinese émigrés live their lives. Many that when Tao reaches her fifties in 2025, she must have second of them don’t speak the Shanxi dialect, some don’t speak Chinese thoughts about her choice, not only because she hasn’t seen her at all. A language barrier has appeared, disrupting communication son for more than a decade but also because the boy grows up in between parents and children. Is this the kind of family relationship Australia and lacks a mother’s love. Mountains May Depart does not we want? end with a mother-and-son reunion, but the audience may imagine what Tao and Dollar would have to say to each other if they did meet The fateful decision that sparks the film’s story is Tao’s choice of Zhang again. Jinsheng rather than Liangzi as her husband. Practically, her choice makes good sense. But it proves very damaging at the emotional There’s no real science-fiction aspect to the chapter set in 2025, but level, for all concerned. How do you see her choice? it does contain some interesting predictions, such as transparent tablet devices and the triumph of vinyl records over Like the beginning and ending of A Touch of Sin, this story takes you back to Shanxi CDs. How much did you think about future trends – specifically to Fenyang, the town where you were born. Aside from your personal and technology? And why did you choose Australia? feelings for the place, do you see Fenyang as a kind of microcosm of China in the 21st Is 2025 that far from us? Not really. It’s only a decade century? away. I told myself at the outset that this would not be Like the beginning and ending of A Touch of Sin, this story takes you back to Shanxi sci-fi, but a film depicting people’s emotional lives in – specifically to Fenyang, the town where you were born. Aside from your personal the near future. As now, people in 2025 will probably feelings for the place, do you see Fenyang as a kind of microcosm of China in the 21st pretty much rely on the internet for information century? and communication. Our art director is a big fan of From my first films Xiao Wu and Platform to A Touch of Sin, my hometown Fenyang devices like tablets and smartphones, and he collects has always had special resonances in my films. But there’s a different specific reason futuristic conceptual designs. We came up with the each time I shoot there. When I set Xiao Wu there, I saw Fenyang as a small inland city idea of transparent digital devices together, on the going through transformation. You could basis of those concepts. I know about the back-to- take it as a microcosm of all cities in China vinyl trend, but vinyl records are basically a reminder longing for development and opening- of the past for me. They have disappeared from most up. Most Chinese people were living in people’s lives. Young people mostly download music cities like that. And although it’s located to their mobiles and computers from the internet. in the basin of the Yellow River, the cradle It seems that sales of records as physical objects of Chinese civilization, few filmmakers won’t last much longer, but I believe that vinyl record had ever shot there. albums will still be around in 2025, just like paper When it came to A Touch of Sin, there books. There’s a line in Mountains May Depart: were other reasons as well. Shanxi has “some things cannot be destroyed by time.” a large number of ancient buildings which are still now part of everyday life. I actually thought about setting the ‘2025’ chapter The stories in A Touch of Sin remind me in North America, in a city like Vancouver, Toronto or of the stories in the classical novel The New York with a large Chinese-immigrant community.