Still Life

Name: Still Life
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: January 18, 2008
Duration: 111 min
Rating: 81

2008

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Universal acclaim based on 10 Critic Reviews

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Universal acclaim based on 20 Ratings

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8.1	User Score Universal acclaim based on 20 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

New Yorker Films | Release Date: January 18, 2008

Summary: Sam Ming makes a trip to the City of Fenjge to find his ex-wife and daughter. He has not seen them for several years. (Ad Vitam)

Director: Zhang Ke Jia

Genre(s): Drama, Romance

Runtime: 111 min

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Critic Reviews

100

TV Guide Magazine Ken Fox

Few of China's Sixth Generation filmmakers have turned to their country's explosive economic growth and its attendant upheavals with so sharp an eye and so heavy a heart as Jia Zhang-ke. Read full review

100

Michael Phillips

The first great film of the year. It’s beautiful but so much more—full of subtle feeling, framed by a monstrous, eroding landscape. Read full review

100

Lisa Schwarzbaum

More than a million people have been displaced in central China in the cause of generating electrical power to meet the needs of the future; Jia's flowing river of a picture washes over a few of them as they adjust to life's currents in the present. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

This 2006 drama may seem to be worlds apart from the surreal theme-park setting of Jia's previous film, "The World," but there are similarities of theme, style, scale, and tone: social and romantic alienation in a monumental setting, a daring poetic mix of realism and lyrical fantasy, and an uncanny sense of where our planet is drifting. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

A modern master of postmodern discontent, Jia Zhang-ke is among the most strikingly gifted filmmakers working today whom you have probably never heard of. Read full review

Jack Mathews

There is no turning back; the biggest project in China since the Great Wall and the Grand Canal has claimed its human cost and now must prove its own worth. - Read full review

Derek Elley

Has almost zero plot but molto mood. It will appeal to the most faithful of the director's camp-followers and no one else. Read full review

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User Reviews

AllenWong

Jun 6, 2021

I think this film can represent Chinese ordinary people. A sad man, a unlucky woman, give us a true story.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

idahotraveler

Feb 27, 2015

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I actually really enjoyed this movie (that is, if you can enjoy a movie about loneliness and death). Eddie Marsan, as Mr. May, does a wonderful job of portraying what living in the world as an unconnected being is all about. Ironically, his job is to find connections for others like himself, who have passed on with no known family or friends. He diligently tries to provide for them what he lacks in his own life- at least one person who cares. His boss berates him for spending too much time and money trying to find relatives or friends who would come to a funeral and says the person is dead, so doesn't care. But Mr. May seeks to honor their lives as best he can- he keeps all their pictures in a photo album which he looks at frequently- as long as he remembers them, they haven't lived a wasted life. He even tries to give them a funeral in whatever religious tradition they followed, if he can find evidence of one. Of course, the final irony is that he is responsible for bringing a family together on the last case he had before his job was terminated, and as the funeral is going on and all the people he found are gathered there, he is being buried in the same cemetery, alone, with no mourners (he gets hit by a London double-decker bus). The only reason I gave this less than a 10 was for the final scene- where all the dead people he had served in his job are seen as spirits coming to surround his grave to pay their respects and as a thank you to him- it was just a bit campy and intended to tug at heartstrings, in which it succeeded, but a little too much on the 'and he died happily ever after' side. Otherwise, I enjoyed Mr. May's sensitive, gentle soul and wished more people in today's world were as caring- a good moral lesson there.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

RobertH.

Nov 29, 2008

The film has it's moments but when compared to the director's previous efforts the filmmaking here strikes me as far too lazy, relying too much on the backdrop and nonactors at the cost of lackadaisical narrative. if you don't edit your view of life enough to focus ourThe film has it's moments but when compared to the director's previous efforts the filmmaking here strikes me as far too lazy, relying too much on the backdrop and nonactors at the cost of lackadaisical narrative. if you don't edit your view of life enough to focus our attention where's the art?… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful

ryancarroll88

Aug 27, 2010

Uncertainty is at the stem of Jia Zhangke's "Still Life" and it molds itself into many forms - uncertainty as to what China's economic boom holds for its future, displaced people uncertain whether they will ever see those they have lost again, and uncertainty over whether love that is brokenUncertainty is at the stem of Jia Zhangke's "Still Life" and it molds itself into many forms - uncertainty as to what China's economic boom holds for its future, displaced people uncertain whether they will ever see those they have lost again, and uncertainty over whether love that is broken can ever be mended. All of this takes place in the backdrop of Fengjie village, which was at the time being upheaved for the construction of Three Gorges Dam (now complete, and the largest electricity-generating plant in the world). Zhangke's use of a real setting provides for some powerful shots that have formed him into one of China's foremost artistic commentators, but this also diminishes the entertainment value (which, in my opinion, shouldn't have to be compromised in this type of filmmaking).… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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