Da Xiang Xi di er Zuo (2018)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 230 minuten
Alternative titles: An Elephant Sitting Still / 大象席地而坐
Country:
China
Directed by: Hu Bo
Starst: Peng Yuchang, Wang Yuwen and Zhang Yu
IMDb score:
7,8 (8.590)
Releasedate: 8 March 2018
Da Xiang Xi di er Zuo plot
In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that just sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for some people, a desire to escape the downward spiral they find themselves in. Among them is schoolboy Bu, who is on the run after pushing bully Shuai down the stairs. Bu's classmate Ling has run away from her mother and has fallen for her teacher's charms. Shuai's older brother Cheng feels responsible for a friend's suicide. And finally, there is Mr. Wang, a cheerful retired man whose son wants to place him in a home.
Actors and actresses
Wei Bu
Huang Ling
Yu Cheng
Wang Jin
Li Kai
Yu Shuai
Wang Jin's Daughter
Wang Jin's Son-in-law
Wang Jin's Granddaughter
Yu Cheng's Friend
Reviews & comments
hvdriel
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- 385 messages
- 350 votes
Does a masterful masterpiece exist? Sure, that exists. For almost four hours, we follow three young people and an older man in a mosaic for a day in a dreary Chinese city that afterwards you mainly remember in black and white images, while I actually watched a color film. Although...? Then covered with a gray filter.
The slow camera follows each of them, strolling through a part of the city or sitting at home to go away, denying everything they are accused of. The action happens off-screen or in the vague background; sometimes we deduce an event from the audio tape. The film thus tends towards pure poetry, also because of the repeated motifs (the white dog, a stick/billiard cue/bat/revolver wrapped in tape, etc.), including the recurring story about an elephant that merely sits and ignores its surroundings. , is the guiding principle of the entire film. As an image he only appears on a circus poster, as a story even more so and his trumpet sound on the soundtrack ends the film on a somewhat hopeful note.
Bo Hu's first and last film is also his magnus opus, which is a strange comment for an oeuvre of one film, but I'll allow it. Anyone who makes a completely empty and dreary film that floats by and for which I would rather wet my pants so I don't miss a shot than run to the toilet in between, deserves more than five stars.
Fisico (moderator films)
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- 10000 messages
- 5397 votes
I finally decided to give it a go. It will keep you entertained all evening. A bit of a good thing and a lot to spend 4 hours on here, but it could easily have been an hour and a half shorter to deliver a message. What is particularly striking are the many stylistic images and excellent camera handling. Visually, it is definitely worth seeing. The characters themselves are also fascinating, of which I found the old man by far the most interesting.
In terms of setting, also the difficulty with the sometimes miserable living conditions in China, where the (artificial) message around the elephant gets extra power. Fleeing from your misery to build a new life... But is this it? Isn't the grass always greener on the other side?
lang pee
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- 2488 messages
- 1099 votes
I thought this was a fantastic first and last film by Hu Bo. I read somewhere that this was actually his suicide note. But I don't think this is a good movie just for the reasons he chose to leave this planet. I enjoyed every minute of this gem, for me it was just rightly about the uselessness of existence. Sometimes something is so ugly that it becomes beautiful, they say. That's what I thought of the images of this film too, gray, gray, depressing but fantastic...and I understand Hu Bo.
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