Dong.2006.Jia.Zhang-ke.DVDscreener.Eng.subbed.XViD.AC3.aguadilu.avi 
Dong (Jia Zhang-ke, 2006, Toronto Film Festival)
Saturday September 09th 2006, 6:01 pm
Dake Kehr
Jia Zhang-ke’s 66-minute documentary is a companion piece to his fictional feature “Still Life,” the just-announced winner of the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion. Jia’s subject is the painter Liu Xiao-dong, whose large, multi-paneled paintings depict workers in various forms of tense repose. First, Jia shows Liu working on an epic study of laborers at the Three Gorges Dam project in the doomed city of Fengjie (where “Still Life” is also set); then, the setting moves to Bangkok, where the painter works on a parallel portrait of Thai sex workers, assembled on a huge mattress. This appears to be Jia’s first work in high definition video, and in the first half he explores the hard, prickly detailing and effortless deep focus unique to that medium, comparing Liu’s rough painting to the actual mountain landscape that looms behind it; the second half is more about the chilly glow of the hi-def color palate, explored through the brightly colored traditional costumes of the prostitutes and the radiant neon of the city at night. In contrast to his features, his camera here is often still (perhaps because the equipment is bulkier) and the compositions seem far more self-conscious, as if he were trying to adopt the visual approach of the painter in place of his usual open-framed, actor-centered style. Liu, both interviewed on camera and speaking in voice-over, talks about the coiled energy of his subjects, which he finds quite sensual and beautiful; for Jia, the paintings seem to be an extension of the stages that usually fill his films (”Platform,” “The World”), spaces for playing out fantasies that have no place in the real, offstage lives of his characters. It’s a beautiful and lovely and fascinating film in itself, though “Dong” will probably reveal its deeper character only when it stands – like the panels of Liu’s paintings – side by side with its sister work.
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XviD
Runtime: 01:07:33 (121,456 fr) 720x400 (1.80:1)
Bitrate: 2297 kb/s
FPS: 29.970
QF: 0.266 bits/pixel
Audio: Chinese, AC3
Subtitles: English hardsubbed
