Shan he gu ren
Mountains May Depart
China / Japan / France 2015
produced by Shozo Ichiyama, Patrick Andre, Olivier Père for Xstream Pictures, Beijing Runjin Investment, Office Kitano, Arte
directed by Jia Zhangke
starring Zhao Tao, Zhang Yi, Liang Jing Dong, Dong Zijian, Sylvia Chang
written by Jia Zhangke, music by Yoshihiro Hanno
review by Mike Haberfelner
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It's 1999, and China is well on its way to become one of the leading
world economies: Young Tao (Zhao Tao) is torn between two men, up and
coming but slightly arrogant and nouveau riche Jinsheng (Zhang Yi) and
honest-to-the-bone yet professionally not very promising coal miner
Liangzi (Liang Jing Dong) - and when fighting over her both men show
nothing but their shortcomings, Jinsheng inasmuch as he wants to buy
Liangzi out of the triangle, Liangzi when he attacks Jinsheng physically.
Ultimately, Tao chooses Jinsheng over Liangzi, upon which Liangzi leaves
the province altogether and becomes a migrant worker. 2014: China's best
years as an economic powerhouse are pretty much counted, and those who can
afford leave the country ... including Jinsheng, who has long parted ways
with Tao, despite them having a son together, Dollar, whom Jinsheng is
about to take with him to Australia. Tao gets the chance to see the boy
once more before they leave though, but the two are totally alienated
already, which breaks Tao's heart. In the meantime, Liangzi is diagnosed
with cancer, which causes him to move back to his hometown with wife and
child to try and borrow enough money for chemotherapy and stuff. But
money's not exactly in steady supply anymore since the rich skip the
country. Ultimately, and behind his back, Liangzi's wife asks Tao for
money, who's more than willing to give, and she only now starts to
second-guess what might have gone wrong in her life. It's 2025,
Australia: The status of the USA as economic powerhouse has fallen, and
Tao and Jinsheng's 18 year old son (Dong Zijan), once affectionately
called Dollar as a symbol of wealth, now gets more and more teased for his
name ... and as a Chinese in Australia, he feels more and more unrooted in
the country he has essentially grown up in. At the same time, talking to
his father has become a virtual impossibility as Dollar talks mostly
English, and Jinsheng understands very little of it. He thinks his son
should study hard to become a business success, but Dollar has very little
interest in anything and just wants to live free. Interestingly he finds
an ally (and eventual lover) in his motherly Chinese teacher at college -
who like him feels unrooted, and together they plan to track down their
roots in China and Canada, where her mother lives ... Mountains
May Depart is a rather interesting and compelling movie ... that
unfortunately loses impact the longer it goes on. When it starts out, it's
a movie of small gestures carrying big feelings, a bit in the Eric Rohmer
tradition of things, and Zhao Tao works really well as the movie's central
character. Unfortunately, the scope of the narrative grows bigger for the
second, the 2014 part (also in term of screen ratio, actually), and
instead of small gestures the film banks on big themes - which is only
intensified in segment number 3 (2025) when topics (and characters) are
thrown into the movie not yet talked about while other storylines (like
that of Liangzi) are dropped without explanation. Also the
light-footedness of the narration is gone with part two, and part three is
just too removed from the first two parts to grant stringent story telling
and keep the audience interested. Still a film that has a lot going for
it, mind you, but it could have done with a tighter screenplay and thus a
less convoluted storyline.
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