Jia Zhangke’s THE WORLD creates a microcosm of urbanization in a theme park
THE WORLD (SHI JIE) (Jia Zhangke, 2004)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Friday, August 31, 2:30, and Monday, September 3, 2:00
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
Jia Zhangke’s fourth film (following Pickpocket, Platform, and Unknown Pleasures) is set in a Beijing theme park called the World, where people come to see miniature versions of major international cities and landmarks, including Paris, New York, London, and Tokyo, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, the World Trade Center, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower. The luminous Zhao Tao stars as Tao, a park dancer dating security guard Taisheng (Chen Taisheng). She becomes friendly with Anna, a Russian woman who has come to the park to make money so she can reunite with her daughter. However, dreams don’t always come true in this microcosm of urbanization. As Tao questions her relationship with Taisheng, he starts seeing Qun (Wang Yiqun), a fashion designer who makes knock-offs and is trying to return to her husband, who lives in Belleville. Meanwhile, Xiaowei (Jing Jue) is trapped in an abusive relationship with Niu (Jiang Zhongwei) that threatens to explode. The World is a charming little film, not looking to make any grand statements, just concentrating on the problems of ordinary people all over the globe who are struggling to survive financially, emotionally, and romantically. The World, which was shown at the 2004 New York Film Festival and was followed by such other fine Zhangke works as Still Life, Useless, and 24 City, is screening at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the ongoing series “50 Years of the New York Film Festival,” which continues with such NYFF vets as Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Jafar Panahi’s Offside, Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Individual tickets for the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Film Festival, which runs September 28 through October 14, go on sale to the general public on September 9.
Poor Mr. Lazarescu. He lives in a shoddy hovel of an apartment in Bucharest, where he drinks too much and gets out too little. He moves around very slowly and has trouble saying what’s on his mind, even to his three cats. His family is sick and tired of telling him to lay off the booze, so they ignore his complaints. Suffering from headaches and stomach pain, he phones for an ambulance several times, but it arrives only after a neighbor calls as well. Mr. Lazarescu then spends the rest of this very long night fading away as he is taken to hospital after hospital by the ambulance nurse, who gets involved in a seemingly endless battle with doctors to try to save him. Ian Fiscuteanu is sensationally realistic as Mr. Lazarescu; you’ll quickly forget that he’s not really a drunk, disgusting, dying old man. Luminita Gheorghiu is excellent as Mioara, the nurse who gets caught up in Mr. Lazarescu’s case. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard Award, cowriter-director Cristi Puiu’s very dark comedy is simply captivating; despite a slow start, it’ll pull you in with its well-choreographed scenes, documentary style, and careful camera movement. (Also look for the subtle and very specific naming of characters.) Using Erich Rohmer’s “Six Moral Tales” as inspiration, Puiu has said that The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is the first of his own “Six Stories from the Bucharest Suburbs,” this one dealing with “the love of humanity,” followed by 2010’s Aurora. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, which was shown at the 2005 New York Film Festival is screening at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the ongoing series “50 Years of the New York Film Festival,” which continues with such NYFF vets as Jafar Panahi’s Offside, Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Individual tickets for the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Film Festival, which runs September 28 through October 14, go on sale to the general public on September 9.
Danish journalist Mads Brügger risked a lot more than just his career in making The Ambassador; he put his life on the line as well. “If you do it the way we will set you up to do it, you have a very high probability of success,” he is told by Colin Evans, who works for a company that can allegedly make anyone a diplomat of a diamond-rich African nation for the right price. “If you do it any other way, the best that you can hope for is to be arrested and go to jail and lose everything you’ve got. That’s the best you can hope for. The worst you can hope for is that you end up dead in a ditch in Africa.” Using his full name, Mads Johan Brügger Cortzen seeks to become a Liberian diplomat to the Central African Republic, meeting with powerful, important, and dangerous people on his fascinating journey, handing out “envelopes of happiness” filled with cash while claiming to want to build a match factory with the help of native pygmies. As Brügger’s story gets more and more ridiculous, he gains greater access, with soon only President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s signature necessary to achieve his absurd goal. An intriguing mix of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat and Ali G characters and controversial filmmaker and activist Michael Moore, Brügger, whose previous film, The Red Chapel, found him leading a bizarre experimental theater troupe into North Korea, goes about his business with a sly confidence, balancing the serious nature of the proceedings with humorous moments that threaten to reveal his ruse, but nobody seems to catch on as the money keeps flowing. (The film was financed by Lars Von Trier’s Zentropa studio.) Primarily using hidden cameras that he keeps rolling even after being told that filming is not allowed, Brügger employs his unique brand of what he calls “performative journalism,” a blend of performance art and investigative journalism that results in an outrageously entertaining film that exposes surprisingly blatant international corruption and has led to a firestorm of debate. The film opens August 29 at the IFC Center, with Brügger on hand for a Q&A following the 8:20 screenings on August 29 and 30.