Films › Cinematography
Still Life
Directed by Jia Zhangke, 2006
Jia Zhangke shot this film in the actual demolition zones of Fengjie as the Three Gorges Dam flooded the region, with cinematographer Yu Lik-wai using long static takes and slow pans across rubble and half-submerged buildings. The choice to film on location during real destruction, rather than build sets, means the frame is doing historical documentation and fiction simultaneously. Yu favors wide compositions that dwarf human figures against demolished apartment blocks, using natural light and long lenses to compress space and flatten depth, so people read as small elements within a vanishing landscape. Digital cinematography, unusual for a prestige film at the time, gave Jia the mobility to shoot fast in an active demolition site with minimal crew. The two surreal interjections, a UFO and a building launching like a rocket, are inserted without fanfare into otherwise observational realism, and that tonal collision is the film's signature move. For a working filmmaker, this is a model of shooting where you cannot control the set: let the real environment dictate blocking, and use scale rather than movement to convey political weight.
What to watch for
Watch for the moment a demolished building suddenly lifts off like a rocket without any change in camera style around it.
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