24 City

From Chengdu, the Chinese city that later was hit by an earthquake, director Jia Zhang-ke tells us about the state-owned factory 420. It is now shut down and in its place a complex of luxury apartment is built, called 24 City. Three generations and nine characters are presented in the film. It is old workers, factory employees and the young new rich who tell their stories, giving us an insight into the new China where old traditions are substituted by a modern lifestyle at a rapid pace. The director’s surprising device is that four of these interviewees are actors.

Jia Zhang-ke has through his film career been concerned with depicting China’s position in the contemporary world, focussing on people and their relationships to each other. Unlike most other feature film directors, who often start out with shorts and documentaries, Jia has moved from fiction to concentrating on documentaries in later years, like in Dong (2006) and Useless (2007). In 24 City he is mixing elements from both forms and has fresh methods on hand when he revisits his favourite theme: the destructive effects of rapid the economic development that marks China these days. 24 City concentrates on the area at and around what was the old factory and is now the new luxury apartments. The camera moves slowly, almost fluidly over the area, edited together with old material, creating a form of collage through time and space. The transitions between present and past are not always noticeable, rather they are connected in a historical reality. jo