Contemporary neorealism: the innovative worlds of Jia Zhangke
In the 1990s, the so-called Sixth Generation of China‘s filmmakers arrived with a series of movies shot quickly and cheaply due to the lack of state funding. By using non-professional actors and employing long takes with handheld cameras, many critics found a kinship in the Sixth Generation with the great directors of Italian neorealism, particularly in the works of Jia Zhangke.
Jia’s movies seem to be diametrically opposed to the works of the prior Chinese Fifth Generation, such as Chen Kaige’s King of the Children and Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern, in the way that they explore the harsh treatment of Chinese civilians by the Chinese state in an authentic, almost documentary-like style, leading to their widespread critical admiration on an international scale. “When faced with the complexity of real society, their hands and feet quiver, and they deliriously shoot a bunch of childish fairy tales,” the director had once said of the romanticised films of his predecessor Chinese directors.
Neorealism, made famous by the Italian directors Robert Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti, focuses on the everyday lives of ordinary people, and Jia’s take on the genre explores the effects of modernisation and globalisation in his native China, whilst largely adhering to the neorealist principles of filmmaking, if only out of necessity’s sake.
For instance, his debut feature film, 1997’s Xiao Wu, focuses on a small-time pickpocket in an impoverished small town in China who wanders around disaffected by his surroundings and makes little effort to change his ways. In detailing Xiao Wu’s life, Jia shows the harsh realities that many Chinese citizens faced as the societal changes in China took a strangle on its populace.
In Jia’s next film, 2000’s Platform, Jia cast a group of local theatre actors from his Fenyang hometown, creating an authentic piece of cinema fully in line with the ideals and ambitions of neorealism. By focusing on the societal changes in China between the late 1970s and early 1990s, Jia had once again explored the effects of the country’s transition from the Cultural Revolution to free market reform.
Elsewhere, Jia explored the effects of industrial progress in Still Life, which was shot in the village of Fengjie, a small town partially submerged during the building of the Three Gorges Dam, and The World, which examined the delimiting nature of globalisation in a narrative about a group of young people who work at a theme park that allows visitors to see many different parts of the world.
Beyond the narratives and themes, though, which are undeniably neorealist in their approach, Jia’s filmmaking technique also has shades of the great Italian directors of the 1940s and 1950s. His minimalistic dialogue, use of non-professional actors and insistence on shooting on location all help to create a realistic portrayal of the hardships of modern Chinese life, particularly amongst the most downtrodden and outcast.
There’s space in Jia’s films that allows audiences to reflect on the over-industrialised environments of China and to come to terms with the dreams and ambitions of Chinese citizens despite their reasons for hopelessness. The tension between modernity and tradition is given room to breathe throughout many of Jia’s movies, which glossed them in a strange sense of beautiful melancholy.
Speaking with Frieze, Jia had once admitted to his neorealist tendencies and explained that he had been drawn to one of the genre’s greatest works. “Sometimes I have been termed a neo-realist filmmaker, and there is some truth to this since I admire Ladri di biciclette by Vittorio De Sica,” Jia noted. “The film is essentially about the beauty of life, which is reflected in De Sica’s assiduous observation of the surroundings.”
Indeed, like De Sica and his 1948 neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves, Jia details an unbridled air of authenticity in his movies to capture Chinese life as it really is, far from the romanticised and melodramatic notions of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. There’s an awareness and a documentarian truth to Jia that has often been missing from the narrative cinematic medium, but through his works, neorealism has its undoubted modern hero.
