By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Jia Zhangke
Starring: Dong Zijian | Liang Jing Dong | Sylvia Chang | Zhang Yi | Zhao Tao
Original language title: Shan he gu ren
Country: china, france, japan
Year: 2016
Running time: 131
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3740778/reference
Kyle says: “MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART is only the eighth feature film by iconoclastic virtually legendary Chinese director Jia Zhangke. According to his own words during a New York Film Festival Q & A last fall, he had thought about not making another film after the many difficulties and mixed reception of his prior film, the brilliant A TOUCH OF SIN. Fortunately for us, and for cineastes everywhere, he changed his mind. MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART was my personal favorite of the NYFF 53 roster, and halfway through 2016, remains my top choice for Chlotrudis nominations as Best Movie, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Use of Music in a Film, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design.
“My notes for the NYFF screening of MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART begin and end with the same phrase: sheer bliss. That reaction is as much a result of Zhao Tao’s transformative performance in the lead role of Shen Tao, whose story is told in three episodes during the years 1999, 2014, and 2025, as it is Jia Zhangke’s exquisitely appropriate use of the Pet Shop Boys’ 1993 cover of the Village People’s ‘Go West’, first in a joyously frenzied disco celebration at the turn of the millennium in 1999, and in 2025 as the sadder but wiser Shen Tao takes her dog for a walk along the beach, removes the collar, and without warning breaks into her dance moves from 1999. One of the great cinematic and musical moments of this year, or any year, embraces a dreamy past, as it confronts an uncertain future.
“Between 1999 and 2025, we learn the stories of Shen Tao and her two suitors, a wealthy entrepreneur and a poor coal miner. Ultimately a clear-eyed if melancholic view of change during globalization, especially in China, MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART features what is possibly the director’s most subversive scene in his collected works. Zhang (Zhang Yi), the suitor she marries because he will be wealthy and successful, has a terrible tantrum at a table overloaded with guns. He could not own such an arsenal in China, so he has moved to Australia, impotently raging that he now owns a pile of guns but has no one at which to shoot them, finally asking angrily — what good is freedom? The question has more resonance during this time of international peril than it did even last September at Lincoln Center. Long after forgetting most of the films I see at various festivals, MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART continues to haunt me.
“Monday, September 28, 2015, the New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York.”
Chris says: “Set over three time periods, the latest from Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke follows Shen Tao (played by his longtime muse Zhao Tao in perhaps her best role to date): she’s a woman coming of age at the end of the 20th century whose choices create consequences both good and bad for those closest to her. A character-driven epic that’s more confident and efficient than Zhangke’s earlier work, it recalls the Zhang Yimou of TO LIVR, while also coming off as more subtle and poignant; it also makes inspired, repeated use of pop songs both by Taiwanese-Canadian singer Sally Yeh and venerable British duo the Pet Shop Boys.”