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MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (China/France/Japan 2015) ***
Directed by Jia Zhangke

Review by Gilbert Seah

MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART is the new film from China’s art house favourite director Jia Zhangke whose all other films that included PLATFORM, STILL LIFE, 24 CITY and the most recent A TOUCH OF SIN were all screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. His films share the same theme of the individual living in a changing society, which in this case is China.

His films are interesting primarily because Jia is a director who does what he likes, and therefore breaks the mould of films in this genre. In MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART for example, the film is told in three parts, but they do not dwell on three separate characters but on three different times, the years being 1999 (the millennium eve), 2014 and the future of 2025, where the 3 characters found in the first segment spawn new characters that appear in the last while themselves disappearing from the story.
Jia shoots the three time periods in different aspect ratios with the square Academy frame expanding to widescreen. Those in the filmmaking business will be elated to discover this fact, but the ordinary filmgoer including film critics may not even realize the difference. It is a neat tactic but would hardly do anything but maybe alter a bit of the tone of the story.

The first part of the film set in 1999 plays like a melodrama. Tao (Zhao Tao), the dance instructor and town beauty has two boyfriends an picks and marries the rich entrepreneur Zhang (Zhang Yi) over the poorer coal miner. In the 2014 segment, she is divorced and brings their son or her father’s funeral. The call miner ex is now married, has cancer and leaves the film at this point. Tao gives up her son who loves to Australia with his dad. The third and final part set in the future of 2025 centres on the son, Dollar and his difficulties with his dad, Zhang. Dollar befriends his college professor (Sylvia Chang) who is an addition to the film’s story.

The trouble that most will have with the three stories is the transition from one segment to another. Director Jia makes no qualms about easing the flow, so when plot switches to the son at the end, most would favour the third part the least even though it makes the most point in Jia’s film.

Jia comes across a bit preachy by turning Zhang’c character into an obnoxious human being. He is all about money, evident by naming his son Dollar. He becomes more distraught when his son wants out of the father/son relationship. The college professor is a very interesting character inserted into the film and more time should have been devoted to her character.

Still Jia’s epic of the negative impact of China’s capitalism on the Chinese individual comes across loud and clear. MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART is an important film that emphasizes a point that is already too clear and one that has affected too many.

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