The tragedy of Unknown Pleasures is suspension. It’s in Xiao Ji’s refusal to discuss the future, though on every front he is faced with its brutality. It’s in
the town of Datong, caught in a moment between construction and
demolition and Qiao Qiao walking through rubble on the threshold of a
Rossellini frame. It’s in the continuous shot of Xiao Ji watching Qiao
Qiao walk past him like a The Third Man’s projection, only this
image disappears too. Past the cemetery, past the tree-lined street,
past the city, there is nowhere else to go, so Qiao Qiao returns to the
bike, Bin Bin gets on the bus, and Xiao Ji hitches a ride with the
police. Suspension in the presence of absent time between Mao and Hu
Jintao where the private and collective collapse on their shared
failure. Cartoon Xiyou ji, cheap nylon, fizzy coke, Zhuangzi by way of Mandopop; the simulacra of modernisation inscribed on digital textures.
The feat of non-curated images, purposeful in presentation but spontaneous
in appearance, brings Panahi to mind. Only a year
after Zhangke’s film, Crimson Gold reaches out from Tehran. Another lament for a city amidst transformation and its people—in search of present time.