When power shifts from one hand to the other, there’s a sense of possibility that can happen. It’s this sense of hope that drives Platform, and at the start, it seemed like the four teenagers of the Fenyang Peasant Culture Group had the world as their oyster, being free to play any new play, or even the new rock-n-roll that was popular in the era. However, Platform also depicts this shift as somewhat of a tragedy. Sure, it takes a while to get there, with writer-director Jia Zhangke taking jumps across years to check in on the troupe, and really, the lives the kids end up living aren’t terrible ones to live in. But, in contrast with the hopes the kids had, and knowing the slow pace that change came to their town, Platform reveals how lost and confused their generation felt, and how the train for freedom and liberation seemed to arrive too late for them.
China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.
China, 1980s. After the failed Cultural Revolution, theatre troupe Fenyang Peasant Culture Group goes from performing Maoist theater productions to performing western-influenced pop music as the All-Star Rock and Breakdance Electronic Band.
The way everyone is framed a bit far away, never with any close-ups, but always meticulously framed.
This might be a tad slow for some viewers, but that’s kinda the point. Change didn’t arrive as fast as it should have.
Venice
1 win
