28 December 2015

Mountains May Depart (China, 2015)

China, 1999. Childhood friends Liangzi and Zhang are both in love with Tao, the town beauty. Tao eventually decides to marry the wealthier Zhang. They soon have a son, Dollar. From China to Australia, the lives, loves, hopes and disillusions of a family over two generations in a society changing at breakneck speed.

Jia Zhangke, director of Touch of Sin (2013), is back with his latest feature film Mountains May Depart. I've noticed how he has a special liking for epic scopes in movies, where the plot can span over many, many years. Here we follow a woman through her adult life and it's very easy to get attached to the characters because we stick with them for so long. Great actors and a superb sense of progression in China's society from 1999 all the way to 2025, Mountains May Depart is a realistic portrayal of a few lives during  a couple of eventful decades.


Genre: Drama

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