The Days is Wang Xiaoshuai’s sedate, beautifully banal portrait of a painter and his girlfriend, their faltering relationship, meandering lives, and post-Tiananmen malaise. A member of the provisionally labeled “Sixth Generation” of Chinese filmmakers, Wang approaches his subjects with a kind of kitchen sink realism, favoring a placid, unhurried, and unadorned view of urban Beijing over the vast tapestries and allegorical gestures of the previous generation of filmmakers. Perhaps this more obliquely political depiction of life in modern China “as it really is” is the reason that the film has been (and perhaps still is) forbidden in the People’s Republic of China (though it has apparently been widely available through the bootleg DVD and VCD market).
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: VCD?
23 Apr 2005 2:19 PM | Submit Comment
