PLATFORM (Jia Zhang Ke, China, 2000)

Felix La Guardia

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The People’s Republic of China – land of the tractor and the thermos flask. Sweeping vistas of blue mountains and stony plains. This is small town China at the tail-end of the Seventies. Loudspeakers on street corners issue forth triumphal music and government proclamations – the tinny sound occasionally punctuated by the crackle of gunfire from public executions. In a scene of apparent disorder – of crumbling buildings and potholed streets – the system of collectivisation means that every citizen has a state-assigned role within society. The teenagers and twenty-somethings of the Fengyang Cultural Team, frustrated by the propagandist fare they are required to churn out to schoolchildren and peasants, discover a new lease of life when they are given the option to privatise their theatre and take it on the road as the ‘All Star Rock and Breakdance Band From Shenzen’.

The movie’s title derives from one of the many pop songs that litter the soundtrack. It speaks of ‘the long and empty platform’ - a fairly obvious metaphor for the way these disaffected youngsters view their life. The hackneyed notion of the dignity of labour is used as a bar to their dreams of university education or artistic expression. Their only distractions from work are cinema, sex and endless cigarettes. Bespectacled Cui Mingliang is considered a geek but is actually something of a hellraiser. Troubled by his lack of success with girls (in particular, the aloof Ruijuan), his father’s mistress and his mother’s bitter tirades, he characterises himself as an ‘artworker’ and carries himself with a cocky assurance that often descends into drunkenness, violence and mischief-making. His friend Zhang Jun is a floppy-haired Romeo, who appears to be dating several girls at once. He is amiably brainless and consequently captures the affections of Zhong Ping – a sexy, sparky girl whose fire is consequently dimmed when she becomes pregnant by Jun. Ruijuan Li is more introspective than the others, choosing to become a tax inspector rather then following her dream of being a dancer. Spurning Mingliang’s advances, she considers that they are unsuited to each other - although it’s clear there is an attraction.

The muffled soundtrack and grainy, unfocussed footage are strangely pleasing, but at over two and a half hours long there are altogether too many lingering scenic shots, which are not helped by a fairly loose narrative thread and some impossibly terse dialogue. As an exercise in culture shock, Platform is very effective however: the lives of Mingliang and the others are beyond anything the Western viewer can recognise as a comparable way of life. The deliberate lack of a coherent timeline exacerbates this – we are aware that the characters have moved forward in time and in personal development but we cannot say how far. Ultimately, I felt that any attempt at empathy was blocked by the excruciatingly difficult interactions between the main characters – but perhaps empathy was not the director’s intention. Certainly not a movie for the impatient viewer.

From High angle

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