The World-Shijie (2004)

Directed by: Jia Zhang Ke | 133 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Tao Zhao, Taisheng Chen, Jue Jing, Zhong-wei Jiang, Yi-qun Wang, Hong Wei Wang, Jing Dong Liang, Shuai Ji, Wan Xiang, Alla Shcherbakova, Juan Iu, Xiaodong Liu, Xiaoshuai Wang

In ‘The World’, as in Jia Zhangke’s previous films, song and dance – and the performing arts in general – again play a major role. As he himself indicates in an interview that was held with him after this film, the performing arts in this film have become one big show. Everything is a spectacle and nothing has any political or content-relevant value anymore. Moreover, practically everything in the profession of the main characters in the film has been copied from other countries. In its attempt to open up to the rest of the world and embrace the market economy, China has gone too far, simply taking the rest of the world in copied and reduced form and turning it into one big attraction.

Not only are all the great buildings from the rest of the world gathered in miniature form in one theme park, fashion is also copied exactly on request from American glossy magazines such as Elle and Cosmopolitan, which the “designers” have ready for the customers in their reception areas.

As a result, the characters in the film seem to be in a kind of no man’s land, and in a phase in their lives – and in the development of China – that is characterized by a certain identity crisis. Like the characters in ‘Unknown Pleasures’, the central figures in ‘The World’ don’t quite know who they are and where they are going or have to go. Relationships are difficult to enter into, or they are troubled by affairs and insecurities. When a couple finally gets married in the movie, it doesn’t seem so much out of an undeniable sense of love, but out of a sense that things won’t get any better. It is significant that the apparently deepest, warmest relationship takes place between two women who do not understand each other, namely the Russian dancer Anna (Alla Shcherbakova) and her Chinese colleague Tao (Tao Zhao).

They are interesting aspects that, however, just like in ‘Platform’, are embedded in a somewhat long-winded story. There could have been a little more speed in the story and less scenes that repeat previous ideas or add nothing to the theme. Fortunately, these flaws aren’t enough to sink the story, which still has enough substantive power to make ‘The World’ a worthwhile, resonant film.