The World

Colour, 35 mm
China, Japan, France, 2004, 133 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

This film, which was screened in competition at last year’s Venice IFF, is set in the huge World Park amusement centre in the suburbs of Beijing. The attractive dancer Tao and other young women perform among facsimiles of the most famous structures in the world - e.g. the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Egyptian pyramids. Tao and her boyfriend Taisheng moved to Beijing from the north several years ago and both got jobs at World Park. Not everyone who comes to the capital filled with big dreams gets a job where a surrealistic virtual world mingles with reality. And yet those who get swallowed up by this world try to find a way out.... “I decided to make a film that reflected my impressions of Beijing, of urban life,” says the director. “I think our impressions about the world are actually only our impressions about our own life and the environment we live in. This thing we call “the world” is really just our little corner of the world.”

About the director

Jia Zhang-ke (b. 1970, Fenyang, China) grew up in a small town in the northern province of Shanxi. At age eighteen he began studying painting but was also interested in literature; he wrote his first novel in 1991. Two years later he was accepted to the Beijing Film Academy, and in 1995 he founded the Youth Experimental Film Group, the first independent production organization of its kind in China. He directed two award-winning videos with the group, Going Home (Xiao shan) and Du du. After graduating, he directed his feature film debut, Pickpocket (Xiao wu, 1997), followed by Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002) and The World (2004).