arsaib4
06-12-2005, 02:19 AM
At last, one of the great films of this decade, PLATFORM, is coming out on DVD in the U.S. Directed by Jia Zhang-ke, who is arguably the most talented mainland Chinese filmmaker working today, the film is a meditation on time and space as it spans the tumultous 1980's when Mao's ideologies gave way to Western-style capitalism under Deng Xiao-Ping. Set in Jia's hometown of Fenyang, Platform depicts the lives of four performers in the Peasant Culture Group being run by the state and how they are affected. Jia beautifully captures the change, in all its glory and shame, with his subtle yet fully realized narrative, not to mention, by employing his now trademark medium-shots to accentuate the alienation felt by the society at large.
Platform never got an official commercial run in the U.S. It played in the NYFF back in 2000 after premiering at Venice the same year. There aren't many films who've been praised more in recent years, but other than a few screenings organized by theater groups in NYC, Platform remained out of public's eye. Artificial-Eye in the U.K. released the film on DVD a couple of years ago, and now it's being released here by New Yorker.
Platform will be released on DVD (http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0009WIE98.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) on August 16.
Platform never got an official commercial run in the U.S. It played in the NYFF back in 2000 after premiering at Venice the same year. There aren't many films who've been praised more in recent years, but other than a few screenings organized by theater groups in NYC, Platform remained out of public's eye. Artificial-Eye in the U.K. released the film on DVD a couple of years ago, and now it's being released here by New Yorker.
Platform will be released on DVD (http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0009WIE98.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) on August 16.