Still Life

Early Work

While a student at the Beijing Film Academy, Jia would make three short films to hone his skills. The first, a ten minute short documentary on tourists in Tiananmen Square entitled One Day in Beijing, was made in 1994 on self-raised funds. Though Jia has referred to his first directorial effort as inconsequential and “naive”, he also described the short day and half shoot as “excitement…difficult to express in words.” But it was Jia’s second directorial effort, the short film Xiao Shan Going Home (1995), that would bring him to the attention of the film world. It was a film that helped establish Jia’s style and thematic interests and, in Jia’s words, was a film that “truly marks the beginning of my career as a filmmaker.” Xiao Shan would eventually to screen abroad where it won a top prize at the 1997 Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Awards. More significantly, the film’s success brought Jia in contact with cinematographer Yu Lik-wai and producer Li Kit Ming, two men who along with producer/editor Chow Keung would come to form Jia Zhangke’s “core…creative team.” With their support, Jia was able to begin work on Xiao Wu, which would become his first feature film. Before graduating, however, Jia would make one more short film, Du Du (1996), a film about a female college student faced with several life-changing decisions. The film, little seen and rarely available, was for Jia an exercise of experimentation and technique, as it was filmed without a script. For Jia, the film was an important learning experience, even if he was “not terribly proud” of the end result.

Underground Success

Upon graduation, Jia embarked on his first feature length film, with producer Li Kit Ming and cinematographer Yu Lik-wai. Xiao Wu, a film about a pickpocket in Jia’s native Fenyang, emerged out of Jia’s desire to capture the massive changes that had happened to his home in the past few years. Additionally, the film was a rejection of what Jia felt was the fifth generation’s increasing tendency to move away from the reality of modern China and into the realm of historical legend. Shot on a mere 400,000 RMB budget (or about $50,000 US), Xiao Wu would prove to be a major success on the international film circuit, bringing Jia a deal with Takeshi Kitano’s production house.

Jia capitalized on his success with Xiao Wu with a two internationally acclaimed independent features. 2000’s Platform, a three hour epic about a provincial dance and music troupe transitioning from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The film has been called the masterpiece of the entire sixth generation movement. Starring Wang Hongwei, Jia’s classmate and star of Xiao Shan Going Home and Xiao Wu, Platform was also the first of Jia’s films to star actress Zhao Tao, a former dance teacher. Zhao would go on to serve as Jia Zhangke’s muse as the lead female role in Unknown Pleasures, The World, and Still Life, as well as acting in 24 City and the short film Cry Me a River (both in 2008).

With 2002’s Unknown Pleasures, Jia began a foray into filming in digital video (although his first experimentation with the medium came a year before, in 2001’s short documentary In Public). Xiao Wu, Platform and Unknown Pleasures are sometimes seen collectively as a informal trilogy of China’s transition into modernity. Unknown Pleasures, a meditation on the aimless “birth control” generation to emerge out of the one-child policy helped cement Jia’s reputation as a major voice in contemporary Chinese cinema. All this despite limited theatrical runs and obscurity in mainland China. Indeed, none of the three films were ever publicly released in the PRC, although pirated DVD sales were brisk, a fact commented on by Jia near the end of Unknown Pleasures when Xiao Wu (Wang Hongwei again) attempts to buy the DVD of Xiao Wu, the film.

Legitimization

In 2004, Jia Zhangke’s The World became Jia’s first film made with official approval by the Chinese government. It was also nominated for a Golden Lion at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, though it failed to win. This foreshadowed his winning the 2006 Golden Lion award for his film, Still Life.

In 2007, Jia released a second documentary (after 2006’s Dong), entitled Useless.

In 2008, Jia released 24 City, an ambitious work that chronicles the lives of several generation of women. At the London Film Festival, 24 City was accompanied by the short, Cry Me a River, a romance starring Summer Palace actors Hao Lei and Guo Xiaodong, and Jia regular Zhao Tao.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jia_Zhangke)