Still Life 三峽好人 is the fifth feature from the maverick mainland director Jia Zhangke. It took home the Golden Lion for Best picture in this year’s Venice Film Festival, following Zhang Yimou’s The Story of Judou 菊豆 (1992) and Not One Less 一個也不能少 (1999). Screened at midnight as a surprise entry as the festival was winding down, the top prize came as a shock to most critics. Last year’s surprise entry, Takeshi Kitano’s Takeshis’ hadn’t made much impact---as is often the case with unheralded entry.

However, Jia Zhangke is by no means a stranger to Venice. His autobiographic epic Platform 站台 (2000) amazed the audience and The World 世界 (2004) also earned a good reception. As early as in 2000, he was hailed by Village Voice as “the best living feature film director in the world”. For a film talent who stands for the fresh hope of Chinese art-cinema, to get an endorsement from a major festival is just a matter of time.

An explication on Still Life’s style calls for closer viewing. Personally, the very first shot of the film impressed me. It is a brilliant long take showing activities of a group of passengers packed on a ferry. To kill time, they chat, gamble, or idly appreciate the landscape. As the camera slowly rotates, the shot unfolds, like a hand roll, the subtle details of daily life. The shot is reminiscent of the first shot of The World, a long take tracking a dancer on a back-stage corridor, but more intricate in terms of cinematic staging.

Thematically, Still Life doesn’t deviate much from its predecessors. It still focuses on lives of ordinary people who are caught in momentous changes. Jia has his own way of interpreting and inflecting the social changes and gives us an ambiguous picture. Rather than presenting the spectacles, he shows the debris. One of most memorable images is about numerous rundown buildings being demolished by workers. Those are buildings in the process of disappearance---disappearing from the map, the every day life, and the history. They come in stark contrast to the colossal Three Gorges Dam which bears the promises of prosperity and development, as is promulgated by the official discourse.

To some extent, Still Life is Jia’s another statement on China’s social transformation.

Remember underprivileged people are always in the spotlight in Jia’s works. There are farmers, thieves, prostitutes, coal miners and marginal teenagers, etc.

At the first glance, they afford the unprecedented mobility brought by the economic reform. However, they can hardly fulfill the dreams in the end. It is these nameless figures that bear the brunt of frustration and embody the ideals buried in the massive project of modernization. Compared to the endless display of stunning colors and repressed muses in Zhang Yimou’s films, Still Life comes more loveable.