Platform (2000)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B
Chinese cinema has too often wanted to live in the past
and not deal with the present, especially when set at the turn of the previous
century, which is why Jia Zhang-ke’s Platform (2000) is such an amazing
film. To begin with, it is set in 1980,
though its 150 minutes run up to the end of the thaw where Maoism is replaced
by a slowly assimilating Capitalism that is pure 1980s; dumbed down pop culture
that pretends to celebrate freedom, but the kind of freedom that sends teens to
spend all their money at malls. China
had little of that to begin with, while it is no surprise that the teens in our
story find New Wave/Pop Rock (in a watered down version) appealing.
Needless to say this is the missing piece of the puzzle in
explaining how the likes of Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 occurred. This film follows a group of teens who
decide that guitars, endless energy and spandex are for them and hope in some
way it could be a way into a happier future despite the kind of country they
live in. The Rock-N-Roll (and note NOT
Hip Hop) spirit just drives teens to this, though this is not to say this is a
music film, something I doubt is possible these days in a Hollywood film that
is obsessed since the 1980s in soundtrack-driven non-musicals. Note that while the debate about whether
Rock or Reagan brought down Soviet Communism, neither force did the same to
China, which is still in its shaky transition to Capitalism decades
later.
Instead, we get the story told the long way, with the
sometimes hard and rough road traveled.
One thing that was immediately striking was the placement of the young
teens against the giant country that is China, reminding one of the groups of
people you would find in Michael Cimino’s innovative, epic stories of people
against the system and change in The Deer Hunter (1978, where steel
workers go from the fiery mills of Pittsburgh to fiery hell of Vietnam and
back) and Heaven’s Gate (1980, where new immigrants fight for the
American Dream and a better future when America is being built, but come up
against forces that intend to dash it before it begins).
There is subtle character development and a well-scripted
storyline by Zhang-ke allowing us to quietly observe the people and the
changes. It is smart, intelligent, very
well drawn and shows Zhang-ke could become a cinema master if he goes into that
direction. These are vulnerable, three-dimensional
people like we rarely meet in most Hollywood productions today and the more you
watch, the more you learn and think about what you would do in their
position. This also remains remarkably
melodrama-free, which is not easy. It
may not have the complex narrative of Cimino’s films or of the likes of Robert
Altman’s Nashville (1975), but it often comes close in heart and spirit,
making it more than worthy of those classics.
I did find the film superior to Zhang-ke’s later digital success Unknown
Pleasures (2002, reviewed elsewhere on this site) as this film makes that
project look like a footnote to this one.
Now we want to see the rest of his work even more and wonder if the 40
minutes cut from this version hurt it in any way.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image looks
marginally better than that of Unknown Pleasures, both issued by New
Yorker, but the film has visual advantages and fullness the digital project did
not. Too bad this was not a bit cleaner
or clearer. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound
is simple stereo at best and has absolutely no surround information. The music by Hanno Yoshihiro and rock songs
are an interesting mix, with nothing too forward or pronounce sonically in the
m ix or the playback. Extras include
two text essays and text interview in a paper fold out inside the DVD case, a
photo gallery, 1/20/03 on camera interview with Zhang-ke running 13:32, a
behind the scenes segment in 12 chapters that runs 21:27, a foreign trailer for
the film, and four trailers for other New Yorker titles.
- Nicholas Sheffo
