Generazione romantica

This is a movie about smoking, chain smoking in fact, by people who don't even know how to smoke. Left overs from prior movies, or stuff shot when you were wandering the streets with a spare digital camera. Tie it up with shots of a woman staring out into space, walking around lost, eating. There's actually a narrative on a black & white screen like in old silent movies, except there's no story to tell.

There's actually a scene where the woman tries to get out of a bus, but some man keeps catching her and throwing her back in her seat. This is repeated at least 10 times, I guess there were 10 takes. Might as well use them all. Lots and lots of sentimental songs, shots of crumbling buildings, boats going down the river. Heard enough?

What I like about Jia Zhangke is that his works of Chinese cinema is highly interesting and something that feels so different to any other filmmakers in China. In many ways, using strange digital camera approaches, approaches on themes, the music, the characters and setting. This movie feels like a statement of his career, in a documentary and fiction fashion, it's a mesmerizing experience.

Using archive footage and blending both non-linear fiction and non-fiction, Zhangke presents a melancholic and avant-garde narrative and atmosphere that is filled with wonderful presentations and themes explored. Presenting characters, performances, music, and dialogue that feels realistic and almost as if you are observing the daily lives of an individual and nature of human beings.

Zhao Tao continues to shine with her natural performance and language with each scene she is displayed on, the soundtrack choices are interesting, and the whole fiction vs nonfiction scenario, while it will put off many viewers, I found it to be interesting and a great experiment of a story.

I don't suggest this as the first movie to watch for Jia Zhangke though, but I say it's amazing.

This one is the real deal; our esteemed director (all of his projects are foremost "director's films") is one of the greats whom you can discuss in the same breath as Vigo and Varda without puffery.

Jia has a tremendous feel for the Chinese people and is able to capture the textures and rhythms of life there like few others I know. It's this humanity and curiosity, combined with incisive wit and subtle indictment of hypocrisy, that allow him to sidestep censorship of politicized content.

This movie could have been a slight and indulgent scrapbook, but the cast and creative teams--working over an extended schedule to make 'Boyhood' blush--keep the whole thing pitch perfect. Like that earlier milestone film, it's a movie almost without any big moments... and yet there is a vast catharsis that fills in during its latter half.

By the time it gets to the last shot, which I now count among my favorite final shots in cinema history, it achieves a sweeping and yet deeply personal sense of determination in the face of the unknown future we all face. I recommend you see it with a lot of people at a cinema.

One of Jia Zhangke's best movies. The best of his works are mainly those documentary-like films with deep reflections on modern China and its ordinary, often invisible people caught in the tide of the country's transformation over the past four decades. I spent over 30 years in China, from 1980s to early 2010s. You may not find dramatic plots in this movie, but many of the scenes reflect what I experienced and witnessed there. This movie feels like a collage, bringing back memories of my life over the past three decades.

Most of the scenes feel both real and surreal from today's perspective-especially when you think about how fast and dramatically Chinese society has evolved, along with how people's lifestyles and mindsets have shifted with the tides of time.

Plot: Qiaoqiao and Bin, deeply in love, enjoy city life together through singing and dancing. Their happiness is cut short when Bin suddenly departs to seek opportunities elsewhere. Determined, Qiaoqiao sets out to find him.

Cannes film festival 2024 palme d'or nominee

A tranquil tale of loneliness,industralization through snippets of changing cities,depleted landscapes,strucures,songs,personal aspirations engraved deeply in the heart of China and it's people.

Jhangke juxtaposes scenes from his previous films to comply with the timelines covered in the film which fits in the narrative perfectly.