Chinese history, particularly within the last century, has been filled with change. This change includes the transition in its style of government and the necessary issues that come as a result of that, as well as the resulting culture shock in areas of China such as Taiwan and Hong Kong that have independent cultural identities. This culture shock is reflected in its film, especially notable in Chungking Express and Still Life, by Wong Kar-Wai and Jia Zhangke respectively. Wong’s Chungking Express focuses primarily on Hong Kong as a multicultural melting pot, using the film’s dual-plot structure to comment on Hong Kong’s identity relative to its British colonial past, doing so using particularly the two female leads. In Still Life, Jia Zhangke also draws a parallel between Chinese cultural identities, but in this case this division is drawn between pre and postindustrial Chinese cultural values. In this film, Jia uses the stories of the estranged lovers to represent the Chinese public accepting the inevitable future and reluctantly allowing the past to be erased. Both of these films, made over a decade apart, assess similar themes present in their individual countries using the same dual-plot format, drawing dichotomies between competing elements of their countries’ cultures; between their identities as Chinese and their attempts to Westernize to make their place in the world.
In the first half of Chungking Express we are shown a police officer, despondent and mourning the loss of his lover, May, by buying cans of pineapple that all expire on May 1st, on which day he eats all of them to represent his moving on from her. He meets the woman in the blonde wig, a drug smuggler, and falls in love with her. She kills her boss and shuns her wig, followed by the film showing a woman named Faye, who works at a restaurant. The romance between her and another cop is the focus of the second half, which ends with Faye leaving for California and becoming a flight attendant. Throughout her half of the film, Faye routinely plays California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas so that she can tune out the monotonous routine of restaurant work and dream of a future beyond her derelict storefront. She fulfills these dreams, moving to America for a year at the end of the film. Mirroring this, as everything in the film is mirrored, is the woman in the blonde wig. She is dating a Caucasian man and wears a blonde wig, to simulate being Western to be in this relationship. When she murders him, she removes the blonde wig and throws it to the ground to represent Hong Kong trying to develop its own distinct identity independent of Western rule. By doing this in particular, not to mention the countless other themes introduced by Wong throughout the film, he is able to introduce the fundamental identity crisis he sees in Hong Kong: between rejecting the years of Western dominance and the struggle to Westernize to remain a part of the world, a part of the toxic relationship. While we are shown a Hong Kong woman rejecting the West and setting off in her own right, we are equally shown a Hong Kong woman idolizing the West and eventually becoming a part of it. We are shown equally a Hong Kong woman restraining her own identity to be with the West, and a Hong Kong woman whose escapist identity relies on her idolatry of the West.
Like Chungking Express, the plot of Still Life is composed of two sequential narratives, but Jia chooses instead to revert back to the first narrative for the end of the film. The first half centers on Han Sanming, who is attempting to find his estranged wife and child after sixteen years, seeing that his old hometown flooded by the Chinese government. The second story focuses on Shen Hong, who is attempting to find her estranged husband. She succeeds in this but walks away from him, stating that she has fallen in love with someone else but never noting who it is. The film then reverts back to Han finding his wife and promising to pay off her debt to reconnect with her, and ends with him departing back to the mines he came from in order to work for the debt money. Intercut through the film are title cards for cigarettes, liquor, tea, and candy. These four items represent a contrast between the modern way of pleasure over necessity, departing from the traditional four household items of fuel, cooking oil, rice, and salt. Primarily, the film is concerned with the flooding of the Three Gorges, a natural icon made nationally famous for its beauty. To that extent, Jia is also highly critical of the Chinese government’s decision to demolish ancient cities in this region in favor of large apartment complexes and the Three Gorges Dam. This erasure of the past is shown in the film as not only the use of its title cards, but in the two protagonists either choosing or being forced to depart from their pasts after spending extensive time seeking to reclaim them. In addition to Jia’s comments on the government’s decisions regarding its history, he is also critical of the way that workers are treated despite the promise of supporting the proletariat masses. When Han finds his wife, he is forced to work in the mines to pay her debt, the last in a string of countless examples of workers being forced to work in dangerous conditions.
Both Chungking Express and Still Life analyze the competing cultures present in Hong Kong and China, respectively, and their impact on the country as a whole. Each film uses a dual-plot structure, mirroring those plots to elucidate different aspects of each country’s culture. In Chungking Express, this is done by contrasting the two female leads; and in Still Life, it is done by contrasting the changing landscape with the past that each estranged lover seeks.
Hunter's Blog 