Indian Sinologist: My romance with Jia Zhangke's films

As for his characters, they live amid this reality, but they are not realists, they are romanticists. Take Xiao Wu for example. He is a small time pickpocket, a vagabond, but he dresses like an intellectual, wears spectacles. He falls in love. He wants his parents to accept him for who he is. All these traits make him a romanticist. But he doesn't get any of these and at the end is arrested. That is the harsh reality. His fate is much different from "Raj", the vagabond from the Indian classic Awara, even though both of them are pickpockets and vagabonds.

Another noticeable trait of the characters of Jia's works is their desultory wanderings. They keep drifting along aimlessly, hopelessly and unenthusiastically. But at the same time they are looking for love, family, acceptance, honesty. Jia's works give a voice to these wanderers, who got marginalised during the great leap that China has taken since the economic reforms of 1979.

Jia Zhangke has come a long way since the days of being a relatively unknown independent auteur to becoming an internationally renowned face of Chinese cinema; however his last work A Touch of Sin is yet to be officially released in China. Jia's works belong to the school of thought in which art is used to hold a mirror to the society and only when a hundred schools of thought will contend, will a hundred flowers bloom.

To end the article at a lighter note, in the film Platform, a foreign film is shown playing in the small theatre of the small city of Fenyang, which also happens to be Jia's hometown. Every time I see Platform, I wait for this particular scene. In an interview, Jia mentions how this film had a deep impact on him. No, I'll not reveal the name of the film here, may be the readers can find it by themselves.

Madhurendra Jha, whose Chinese name is Mao Duliang, is assistant professor in Chinese Studies at School of Language, Doon University, India. As a young sinologist, he participated in the "Visiting Program for Young Sinologists 2015". He is studying Chinese Literature and Culture; The Analysis of Realism and Romaticism in Jia Zhangke's Films at the Chinese National Academy of Arts from July 5 to 24.

The author can be reached at maoduliang@hotmail.com

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