Here’s a re-post from the early days of the Notes on the Mosquito blog:
In addition to being a poet and essayist, Xi Chuan has also worked as a film actor. In Platform 站台 (2000), directed by Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯 about personal and artistic changes in Shanxi 山西 province from the ’70s to the ’90s, he plays a theater director from Beijing modeled in part off the poet Mang Ke 芒克 (co-founder of the journal Jintian 今天, and whose poetry I should be translating soon). Here’s the English-language trailer:
I’m still looking for an excerpt of one of Xi Chuan’s scenes with English subtitles, but the entire movie is available on youku.com. Xi Chuan appears at about 3:38, in disbelief that his troupe has never seen a train in person and berating them for unrealistic acting and individualism; at 32:31, interrogating a misbehaving actor about the goals of socialism under “reform and opening up” 改革开放; and again at 37:13, where his speech indicating the troupe’s future direction is, tellingly, interrupted by a solo flamenco performance.
Hey Lucas, could I have the link to this trailer please? I can’t find it on youtube. Thanks! Also, saw XC this weekend. It was a good time.
Sure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8IBnsxB5qU ; and for the entire movie, click on the “youku.com” link above.
Lucas
Would like to check it out, but i can not see there being a English subtitled version. Always been looking at writing a piece on Chinese music orientated films, however, mainland films are still hard to find and even harder to find a subtitled version.
The version of Platform I saw had English subtitles; I rented it from Netflix when I lived in the US.