Zen Master

While we await the theatrical release of Jia Zhangke's latest film (the documentary "Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue"), we go back and look at a documentary about the director himself and revisit one of his best films.

JIA ZHANGKE: A GUY FROM FENYANG (2016) (B) - Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries") pays homage to Jia Zhangke with this thoughtful and faithful biography that follows the director to his hometown to Fenyang as a jumping-off point to study his filmmaking inspirations and techniques.

Nothing fancy here; just tagging along with the filmmaker as he reminisces with old acquaintances and revisits specific sites from his youth that would populate his early work. Rotating members of his regular troupe join the reveries. As Salles' camera rolls, Jia unspools a narrative that creates a broad sense of his own worldview and goals as an artist. 

There is a shambling, familiar feel to this exercise, which sketches in some back story to the auteur's body of work. He comes across as a humble guy whose heart is into telling stories.

24 CITY (2009) (B) - This is a low-key and somewhat uneventful farewell to a Chinese factory as it makes way for luxury condominiums. Jia is one of the foremost chroniclers of the nation's transition from communism to controlled capitalism, but you wish he offered more insight this time. 

He lets workers tell their stories, but for some reason, he brings in ringers -- actors -- to portray some workers. And he doesn't make clear who is real and who is not. Though it is pretty easy to detect Joan Chen sitting in as the pretty woman who in her youth was often flagged as a dead ringer for Joan Chen. Also present is Jia's muse, Tao Zhao, as one of the final two characters who represent children of workers and the next, more yuppie, generation yearning for something beyond the daily grind.

Jia offers lush images paying homage to the work (and crafts) performed at the Chengdu factory and the steady dismantling of the buildings on the vast grounds. It's a lovely film and a fine idea, but it can be strangely inert at times.