Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Beijing Bicycle / Shi qi sui de dan che / France / Taiwan/ China / 2001

Bicycle Thieves obviously weighs heavily in this story of a rural immigrant to Beijing who gets his bicycle stolen while he’s on the job as a courier. His is the character — stubborn and taciturn — that director Wang Xiaoshuai seems to have the most interest in, but unfortunately the film than splits its attention by turning to a petulant Beijing schoolboy. Actually, the parallelism (rather unconvincingly, the two end up sharing the bicycle) does finally come together, but the whole effect is rather spoilt by the violent denouement. Also, Wang’s style is a little too glossy for the subject matter — something more low-budget and grittier like Uniform from Jia Zhangke protege Diao Yinan would have worked much better. Certain scenes like the handheld tracking shot following the schoolboy to the discovery of the missing bicycle, or the long static set-up inside the apartment as his father looks for his missing money, give a sense of a better direction the film could have taken.

by Ian Johnston | Source: Sony DVD
27 Sep 2006 1:19 PM | Comments (2)

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1. leo / 27 September 2006 / 11:19 AM / URL

   Knowing only Wang’s first feature, The Days’s interesting to hear his later films described as glossy. The earlier film is so wonderfully down-to-earth, even with some downright arty gestures, that it seems a shame that he has abandoned this style for something much more polished. I haven’t yet seen his recent Shanghai Dreams, but seeing stills from it seemed to confirm that, like many mainland filmmakers, Wang has upped his stylization quotient. Perhaps this is in response to the critical acclaim and arthouse bankability of his contemporaries in Hong Kong, but it’s interesting to note that a filmmaker like Jia can balance both heavy stylization and blunt realism.

2. Ian / 28 September 2006 / 8:42 PM / URL

   I think Shanghai Dreams is a lot more successful, with a strong, consistent visual tone to the film, although Wang again succumbs (unnecessarily) to jarring melodrama to advance the plot and some overemphatic music and sound effects. Perhaps he just needs to trust the audience more.