Filmmaker Jia Zhangke chronicles his local literature festival in Shanxi, China which includes a multi-generational roster of the country’s most esteemed writers.
Jia Zhangke’s documentaries are as vital as his landmark narrative films, such as “Platform,” “Mountains May Depart,” and “Unknown Pleasures.” “Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue” (Berlin ’20) finds Jia looking back from 1949 to the present, interviewing three prominent authors — Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, and Liang Hong — discussing life since the Cultural Revolution, through the unrest of the late 1980s, to today. A contemplative and spacious addition to a peerless body of work.
Broken into eighteen chapters, “Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue” documents the three authors, and some locals’ personal anecdotes, at an annual literary festival in Jia Family Village (no relation to the director). Aside from the living authors, the focus is on the famous deceased Ma Feng, who hailed from Jia’s Shanxi province. One of the first subjects, Song Shuxon, describes how his impoverished rural community came together after being inspired by the words of Ma Feng. Feng’s surviving daughter, Duan Huifang, details how artists like her father innovated the medium of writing and painting while becoming more politically conscious. With a smile on his face, Song says his village ended up forming mutual-aid groups which helped harvest food and provided basic necessities for everyone.
Another subject is Wu Shixiong who was a youth communist secretary in the early days of the revolution. He explains his role in implementing the Marriage Law, the procurement and distribution of grain, and finally collectivism. The marriage law was an essential part of land reform, as women in rural communities stopped being sold off to landlords. Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, and Liang Hong cover various aspects of the Cultural Revolution that hit a major shift in the 1990s when the Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping (Mao’s successor) made reforms embracing capitalism.
I am struck by Jia’s focus on China’s rapid modernization which has led to an atomizing of communities. Phone screens, a recurring theme of isolation, are captured by Jia’s shots of random people united in the common, but lonely action of being glued to their phones. Liang Hong’s son proves not all screen time is a waste as he uses his to research Socrates and physics. He also mentions losing his grandparents’ Henan dialect, but after Liang coaches him through an introduction in Henan, he is able to pronounce his statement properly. Jia understands the importance of culture and books passed down for a conscious society, through books, stories, and language that connect us.
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