Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)

[Stay Puft]

JIANG HU ER NU / ASH IS PUREST WHITE
Dir. Jia Zhangke



IMDb page

[Stay Puft]

Thought it was going to be another Jia melodrama or genre exercise, instead got a self-reflexive journey through Jia's filmography, like his own 2046, which I didn't realize was happening until the second act (which heavily riffs on Still Life and even repurposes footage) because I haven't seen Unknown Pleasures (which this film riffs on in the first act, also repurposing unused footage, and I guess it could also be read as a sequel with Zhao Tao playing the same(?) character). It traces a lot of Jia's usual themes, and charts the economic and social evolution of China over a large period of time ala Mountains May Depart. I didn't like this film as much, at least on a first viewing (some stretches weren't doing much for me), but it's a slow burn and it really started to catch up and hit me a few hours after I had left the theatre. It's just a really fucking sad story, and the emotional scale of it slowly seeps in and then just hits you fucking hard.

I'm looking forward to revisiting it after I go back and finish Jia's filmography (still have to see Xiao Wu, Unknown Pleasures and The World).

[Lazlo]

I thought this was pretty okay, though the first two acts were much more involving than the third. I've only seen Mountains May Depart so I didn't clock any references to his other films.

As far as Chinese art cinema from last year Long Day's Journey Into Night was much more my speed.

[Stay Puft]

As far as Chinese art cinema from last year Long Day's Journey Into Night was much more my speed.

Yes! I loved this one. Forgot it just got released, too (but disappeared immediately, at least here in Toronto.) Gonna make a thread.

[Lazlo]

Yes! I loved this one. Forgot it just got released, too (but disappeared immediately, at least here in Toronto.) Gonna make a thread.

I randomly got a chance to see it in New York on a business trip. So glad I did.

[Peng]

This is striking to think in tandem with Petzold’s Transit; both are a story told in multiple aesthetic parallels (including one that involves the director’s past work) for its exploration of historical change and human constancy to land with considerable thematic weight. Layers of the past, with Jia using Unknown Pleasures to kick off the first act of pure gangster glamour (including a spectacular action scene) and hauntingly trace back his Still Life work under the Three Gorges Dam second act, still linger as emotional throughline in the film’s final section, which is beguiling and enigmatic… and maybe deliberately deflating to fault. Zhao Tao never miss a beat through it all though, uniting the film’s disparate elements, including decades of both her character’s arc and her past Jia performances, most wonderfully. 7.5/10

[Pop Trash]

Unknown Pleasures is a memorable film. Basically this guy describes the opening scene of Pulp Fiction (although, Pulp Fiction is never mentioned by name, but it's obvious what movie they are talking about) to his friend and they try to attempt their own robbery with hilarious and dubious results. It's like the lamest robbery take down ever. One guy manages to escape on a moped but runs out of gas. It's almost like the Chinese Bottle Rocket.

[Peng]

Yeah, sometimes a few of Jia's early characters can be a tad ennui-afflicted for my taste (even if they fit into his vision), but Unknown Pleasures' two leads are such natural slackers they wouldn't be out of place in films like that.