REVIEW: “Still Life (Sanxia Haoren),” A Chinese Drama Streaming on Amazon Prime
Synopsis from The Austin Chronicle:
“After a decade and a half absent from American screens, Jia Zhangke’s 2006 docu-narrative fusion Still Life has had a restoration, just in time for Jia’s latest documentary, Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, to make the festival rounds. Shot on high-definition digital video, Still Life takes place in Fengjie, a county in China’s Chongqing Municipality undergoing a rough transition with the building of the Three Gorges Dam. Jia utilizes his coal-mining brother, Han Sanming, as the protagonist to tell this docudrama, fabricating a search for his wife, Missy Ma (Ma), and teenage daughter against a very real backdrop of demolition and construction in Fengjie.”