A Touch of Sin (2013)
(Tian zhu ding)
Country: CHI/JAP/FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 133m
Director: Zhangke Jia
Cast: Wu Jiang, Baoqiang Wang, Tao Zhao
Synopsis:
Four interlocking stories among more or less disenchanted citizens show that, for all its avowed Communism, the state operates a form of market economics all the more oppressive for the entrenched culture of corruption and repression of the individual that continues to prevail.
Review:
Zhangke Jia's state of the nation diatribe is a slow-burn puzzle along the lines of Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor, punctuated by random acts of violence. The latter are presented as a radical, self-justifying cry of freedom for characters who feel trapped by the system, or just by the dead-end desperation of the lives. In this sense, the final act of suicide is the bleakest of all, and a jaw-dropping piece of cinematic sleight of hand. There are arresting formalistic moments of beauty here and there, but whether you stay the course in this obscurantist, aphoristic ego trip of an art movie will depend on your own tolerance for aesthetic purism and your boredom threshold.
(Tian zhu ding)
Country: CHI/JAP/FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 133m
Director: Zhangke Jia
Cast: Wu Jiang, Baoqiang Wang, Tao Zhao
Synopsis:
Four interlocking stories among more or less disenchanted citizens show that, for all its avowed Communism, the state operates a form of market economics all the more oppressive for the entrenched culture of corruption and repression of the individual that continues to prevail.
Review:
Zhangke Jia's state of the nation diatribe is a slow-burn puzzle along the lines of Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor, punctuated by random acts of violence. The latter are presented as a radical, self-justifying cry of freedom for characters who feel trapped by the system, or just by the dead-end desperation of the lives. In this sense, the final act of suicide is the bleakest of all, and a jaw-dropping piece of cinematic sleight of hand. There are arresting formalistic moments of beauty here and there, but whether you stay the course in this obscurantist, aphoristic ego trip of an art movie will depend on your own tolerance for aesthetic purism and your boredom threshold.
(Tian zhu ding)
Country: CHI/JAP/FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 133m
Director: Zhangke Jia
Cast: Wu Jiang, Baoqiang Wang, Tao Zhao
Synopsis:
Four interlocking stories among more or less disenchanted citizens show that, for all its avowed Communism, the state operates a form of market economics all the more oppressive for the entrenched culture of corruption and repression of the individual that continues to prevail.
Review:
Zhangke Jia's state of the nation diatribe is a slow-burn puzzle along the lines of Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor, punctuated by random acts of violence. The latter are presented as a radical, self-justifying cry of freedom for characters who feel trapped by the system, or just by the dead-end desperation of the lives. In this sense, the final act of suicide is the bleakest of all, and a jaw-dropping piece of cinematic sleight of hand. There are arresting formalistic moments of beauty here and there, but whether you stay the course in this obscurantist, aphoristic ego trip of an art movie will depend on your own tolerance for aesthetic purism and your boredom threshold.