Still Life DVD, 2006

“Haunting” is an over-used adjective in the critical vocabulary, but in this case there’s no better way of describing something set and shot in a place that no longer exists. Jia Zhang-ke’s film, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, follows a miner and a nurse as they look for estranged former partners in Fengjie – just as the entire town is being demolished and relocated prior to its deliberate flooding as part of the Three Gorges dam project. But although shot on actual locations with largely non-professional actors, this is no gritty social tract but a quiet, contemplative film about memory and loss. Documentary realism is interspersed with spectacular scenery, bizarre flights of fantasy and people’s belongings arranged as suggested by the film’s English title to create something quite unique. It provides clinching evidence that Jia (Unknown Pleasures, Platform) must now be regarded as one of China’s major film artists. The BFI’s DVD has a typically exhaustive Tony Rayns commentary and Jia’s documentary Dong, shot at the same time.

Michael Brooke on 4th August 2008
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