By ROBERTO NORITOMI*
Considerations on the film directed by Jia Jia Zhangke
Jia Jia Zhangke's work, as is well known, opens the door to a wide spectrum of readings on contemporary China, notably those focused on vigorous economic modernization and its social and environmental consequences. With Carried away by the tides (2024) this becomes more pronounced, after all, it is a kind of anthology, unusual, of the filmmaker's trajectory.
There is no point in discussing whether or not this was the result of a convenient ploy to get around the pandemic, but the fact is that the film was largely composed of leftovers from his previous production and articulated with a shorter dramatic segment, shot as a final part with the aim of making the finale. Jia Zhangke has used his filmography since the early 2000s, covering a range of visual material, between fiction and documentary, which coincides with the period of China's colossal leap in the economic and technological sphere, from joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 to consolidating itself as a power in the global market.
Thus, the film synthesis ended up converging with the historical one and became an epic about recent China. As diegetic ballast to create the narrative framework, Jia Zhangke took advantage of this repertoire of images, scenes with two characters (and performers) recurring since Unknown pleasures (2002), Qiaoqiao and Guo Bin, and conceived the misadventures of a couple from the city of Da Tong, an equally recurring region, over twenty years.
Carried away by the tides, therefore, re-presents the thematic scope, the temporal and geographical framework and the typology of characters that characterize Jia Zhangke. Therefore, there would be nothing new in the front and any comment on its content would be on beaten ground. However, the peculiar nature of the work, particularly in what would be its first part, allows it to go far beyond what the plot and thematic reference offer.
And this is due to the editing work. As mentioned, Jia Zhangke revisited his filmography, extracted the images from their original contexts, gave them autonomy and made them available to gain new combinations in a new work. A vast amount of material, from different genres and screen formats, was cut and manipulated to obtain updated meanings. With all the power that the editing table grants, the filmmaker freed sequences and scenes from their original narrative weight so that they could be recomposed in new juxtapositions, dissonant temporally and spatially, and with new and greater semantic gains.
A direct expression of this procedure was the avoidance of disguising the artifice of re-editing, that is, there was no technical adjustment of the manipulation that the images underwent to support the path on which the film is based. This does not mean that the solution of continuity was completely broken, but there are moments when this is quite shaken. A scene is not necessarily followed by another that is diegetically associated with it, as in the classic cut.
In fact, the diegesis is only a pale presence in what would be the first part of the work. Each act ends in the boundaries between the cuts, with no direct and logical connection to previous or subsequent events. This is clear in the long opening sequence, in which several independent scenes follow one another: a group of women singing in a small room; Close at the monument to the manned space mission; people, Qiaoqiao among them, in the rain and wind at the side of a road; men sitting on a staircase waiting to be photographed; a freight train passing by; workers chatting during their break.
Even though they could be seen as the contextualization of a possible story that is beginning, there is no way to say that there is any spatial, temporal or dramatic relationship there. The difficulties increase when we see Qiaoqiao dancing in a dance club and, suddenly, we cut to the spectacle of a man lifting two heavy buckets with a chain stuck through his eyelids. In another scene, the image of an electronic games room appears that has no relation whatsoever to any other moment in the film.
One becomes disoriented as to what belongs to the “story”, since the roll of the dice seems to set the course. The “rough” sequence of scenes demands the viewer’s attention, interest and reflection in order to glimpse the existence or irrelevance of any plot.
These requirements are reinforced by the juxtaposition of images taken from different sources. A fictional scene may be followed by a documentary excerpt, an interview or fixed shots of still objects or people. Even the variation in screen formats is explicit, with the succession of different screen proportions being noticeable, which gives the impression of a patchwork stitching together.
As mentioned above, the editing is not intended to be invisible and allows us to glimpse the unevenness of the capture and contrasts in texture. By creating this juxtaposition, Jia Zhangke blurs the dividing lines between genres and places the staged drama and the documentary reality on the same level, that is, there is no clear hierarchy between the diegetic and the extra-diegetic. The characters lose their leading role and merge with the environment, which comes to the foreground.
In the sequence in Fengjie, in her quest to find Guo Bin, Qiaoqiao is just another one in the crowd of residents, wandering aimlessly and blending in with them. The camera detaches itself from the character, gains autonomy and opens up in panoramic and long shots over the remains of the city condemned to make way for the future dam. What matters is to scrutinize everything that the visual field offers, without there being a “clue” to be identified and followed. That is why the active, alert stance of the spectator is fundamental.
The editing gives prominence to each scene, regardless of its eventual narrative function, and this imposes the need to pay attention to verticality, not just to the film's horizontality. The gaze is encouraged to slow down, to become less anxious about what is to come and to descend into the depth of the images. Obviously, it is essential to think about the scene in its relationship with the previous and subsequent ones, and with any other; after all, this is cinema, but it is also necessary to focus on the singular density of the visual field itself, its visual style and sonority.
Once again, the case of the group of women rehearsing popular songs to celebrate Women's Day is particularly interesting. Despite the fact that this situation acquires a rich meaning when contrasted with the process of diffusion of the standard pop foreigner who will be seen in later scenes, the scene deserves to be understood as such. The long focus and slow movement with which the camera captures the women and objects in the scene requires the patience of the eye so that a unique social experience can be glimpsed.
A way of life is inscribed in the songs, laughter, postures and gestures of these people, and also in the walls and furniture, especially the steaming kettle on the wood stove and the jar of preserves above. The sequence ends, full of symbolism, with the camera moving from the jar of preserves, passing through the smoke coming from the kettle and framing, through the window, a monument made for the first manned space mission (Shenzhou-5); the soundtrack includes the announcement of Phoenix InfoNews.
Another sequence that should be remembered here occurs when Qiaoqiao walks through the scene of Fengjie's destruction. The panoramic shot of the wreckage is cut, a fixed shot is interposed, and in the center of it, a blue rubber boot is placed on the rubble on the banks of the Yangtze River. The shot freezes the moment and highlights, almost in Close, the boot, giving it the autonomy of an object that deserves attention as a concrete and significant fact.
Still on this plane, it is possible to notice the direct reference that the object makes to in search of life (2006), a film from which almost all the images in these sequences in which Qiaoqiao and Guo Bin are in Fengjie come from. The important difference is that in the previous film the boot is just another object among others and does not draw attention within the overall shot. Therefore, it is not just a quote, but something that prompts a more accurate observation.
Jia Zhangke's camera is voracious, but unhurried. The sequences, with few cuts, strive to understand and capture every moment, every tiny and borderline detail of life in its various manifestations. The extended duration of the shots of people, objects and situations, however banal they may be, demonstrates a respect for the passage of time in a world whose pace is different from that of the person behind the camera. Jia Zhangke aims to absorb this continuous reality in its entirety and at the same time recognizes the futile task revealed by the discontinuity of the editing.
But all this respect seeks to preserve and preserve, in their physical and moral integrity, beings whose days are numbered. The intention, however, is not to embalm these figures and place them in a glass dome, as in a museum act, but to guarantee them some form of living permanence. They are workers, small communities, cultural practices, ways of existing, collective spaces and natural environments that have become anachronistic and no longer have a place in the order that is emerging (or being updated). It is recognized that there is nothing to be done, and Jia Zhangke is not a reactionary fighting against the process, but the images in his cinema offer solidarity to those who have been or are being swept away by the tide of new times.
In this regard, the opening sequence of the film is quite eloquent. It is night. A man is standing, probably a worker, seen in profile and then from behind, holding a wrench and staring intently at a bonfire a little ahead and a group of factories further on, in the background. A Close in the crackling fire and you start to hear the heavy base and the verses of a song by heavy metal. The verses say: “Not even a forest fire will burn all the weeds; they will grow back in the spring breeze.”
The “opening message,” practically a visual and verbal epigraph, sets the tone for what will be seen. That worker standing like a warrior is no accident. The persistence of the “weeds” can be seen in the exhausted faces of the workers, in the excitement of the women singing collectively, in the musical performances in the popular theaters, in the pedestrians on the quiet street at dusk in the center of Da Tong, in the displaced residents of Fengjie, etc. Jia Zhangke’s comprehensive way of filming indicates that he uses his lens to save people from chronological time and give them eternity.
This aesthetic stance, which reveals an ethic, confronts the perspective of progress, driven by capitalist vectors, contained in the grandiloquent discourse that punctuates the film through news reports. Such news reports in over, with official intonation even when on private networks, burst forth like a divine voice, or from the omnipotent state, from an undetermined location – extra-diegetic – which highlights the dating of the Chinese epic rise.
It begins with Jiang Zemin's accession to the World Trade Organization, and continues with the first manned space mission (Shenzhou-5), the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the Beijing Olympic Games, etc. To this historical and abstract demarcation established by the announcements of major events, Jia Zhangke contrasts his long and contemplative sequences with snapshots of everyday life and "portraits" of ordinary, real people.
In addition to this contrast between the grandiloquence of official achievements and ordinary life, the film also takes aim, with a certain irony, at technical and economic progress. The statue in reference to space flight becomes an old and indifferent tribute; the much-vaunted entry into the world market (via the WTO) is countered by the privatization and commercial exploitation of the Da Tong Workers' Palace of Culture. Progress, as it is advancing, tramples on its own potential beneficiaries. In this way, by welcoming and giving singularity to those who are being relegated to the margins, Jia Zhangke subverts the epic sense of official history. But the struggle is arduous and the path seems to be narrowing irrevocably at a rapid pace.
The first signs of this narrowing appear when Guo Bin sends a text message to Zao Thao explaining his decision to leave Da Tong alone. The ideograms parade across the cell phone screen. The written word comes to the aid of the viewer who is keen to “find the thread” and the situation becomes less coded. From that moment on, there is a known reason for the characters’ actions. The film acquires “meaning”, dramatic unity is established and the camera alternately assumes the point of view of the two characters, who until then had been depersonalized and entangled in collective images that did not define their clear centrality.
The narrative convergence will occur in Fengjie, where Guo Bin and Qiaoqiao will meet during the demolition and evacuation of the city for the construction of Three Gorges. Here the insertion of extra-diegetic documentary scenes will cease and the image dispersion seen until then will give way to the bundling of scenes into delimited sequences that are less tense due to the discontinuous editing.
There will still be long panoramic shots of the rubble and the residents who will be removed, and there are also some other sequences of wandering through industrial plants or abandoned buildings, but this will be through the eyes of Qiaoqiao, who takes the lead role and guides the viewer. It is she who will meet Guo Bin and break off the relationship with him. The bond that was barely evident in the initial phase of the film now ends, once again supported by the written word (intertitles, this time), which clarifies what the distant images did not easily reveal. At this point, the film begins to lose steam and give up. The bold and elliptical editing will be replaced by the linearity and security of the staged drama of the final part.
Qiaoqiao's decision to end the relationship concludes what would be the first part of the film. The transition to the end is abrupt, simulating the exchange of one roll of film for another, as was done in the projection room before the digital age. This act summarizes the diegetic leap to the present (2022) and the aesthetic change already mentioned. This is followed by a sequence in which in the foreground there is a farmer pushing a motorized plow and in the background we see a passenger plane taking off.
Inside the plane is Guo Bin, beginning his tortuous journey back to Da Tong in the midst of a pandemic. The artificial transition indicates the film’s entry into complete narrative stability, without the dispersions and shocks of documentary scenes. The multiple and diverse at the beginning gives way to the unified and standardized. Da Tong is no longer the city of varied and unexpected experiences. Everything converges towards the well-rounded plot of the reunion, which reaches its climax in the “coincidence” of glances at the supermarket checkout. Destiny trumps chance.
The film takes an ostentatious approach to schematism, particularly in the contrast between the precariousness of the past and the comforts and consumerism of the present. Progress has won and the future has arrived in the form of sophisticated cell phones, material affluence, digital screens on the streets, robots in supermarkets, aseptic buildings, etc. Life is stripped of its rough edges and homogenized into a large commercial arena where consumption and technological sophistication prevail. There are no longer anachronistic figures and practices that interfere with the flow of scenes and national progress.
Jia Zhangke chose to resolve the initial collective dissonances by anchoring himself in the private drama of his two characters. It is the capitulation of a film that initially used its handling of images and narrative disobedience to sympathize with the crowds that were leaving the scene.
Anyway, Carried away by the tides brings aesthetic unrest and political positioning.
*Roberto Noritomi He has a PhD in sociology from USP.
Reference
Carried by the Tides (Feng Liu Yi Dai).
China, 2024, 111 minutes.
Directed by: Jia Zhangke
Screenplay: Jia Jia Zhangke / Wan Jiahuan
Cast: Zhao Tao, Li Zhubin, Pan Jianlin, Lan Zhou, Zhou You
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