While much of our current conversation is focused towards wrapping up 2015, one only has to wait a few months to see one of the most moving, ambitious dramas of 2016. Jia Zhang-ke‘s Mountains May Depart is a three-part, decades-spanning drama that had a festival run including New York, Cannes, TIFF, and more last year. Picked up by Kino Lorber, it’ll arrive here in February and today brings the first U.S. trailer.
One of our favorite films of Cannes, we said in our review, “Though vastly more moderate than its predecessor, the ultra-violent A Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart continues the director’s move away from the extremely measured, observational style that characterized much of his earlier work. Even as his narratives have become more charged, however, Jia’s thematic focus has remained constant and Mountains May Depart offers his latest reflection on the momentous societal changes that have swept over China as a result of its entry and ascension in the globalized world economy. If A Touch of Sin expressed Jia’s rage at the contemporary impact of capitalist progress on Chinese society, Mountains May Depart is his lament over the direction in which it is headed.”
Check out the new trailer below and read our interview with the director here.
China, 1999. In Fenyang, childhood friends Liangzi, a coal miner, and Zhang, the owner of a gas station, are both in love with Tao, the town beauty. Tao eventually marries the wealthier Zhang and they have a son he names Dollar.
2014. Tao is divorced and her son emigrates to Australia with his business magnate father.
Australia, 2025. 19-year-old Dollar no longer speaks Chinese and can barely communicate with his now bankrupt father. All that he remembers of his mother is her name.
Mountains May Depart will open on February 12th, 2016.