'Adrift': A recap of China's transformations today

Jia Zhangke's new film enters, in a certain way, into an interesting dialectic with Blossoms Shanghai, the Wong Kar-wai series which has also just been released, in terms of following the mutations that China has experienced in recent decades by two leading figures of the Asian cinema boom. Wong Kar-wai, the director of Desiring to love, became known for his practice of stylized melodrama that, until now, left historical context in the background. On the contrary, from his first films, Pickpocket (1997), Platform (2000) and Unknown pleasures (2002), Jia Zhangke became the great realist innovator of contemporary Chinese cinema, the representative of a new generation that, unlike the previous one, formed by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, did not look so much towards the country's past as towards the more immediate present in a country of brutal paradigm shift of the socioeconomic model.

The introduction is relevant because, with AdriftJia Zhangke offers a recapitulation of China's recent history through his own trajectory. In a curious exercise that combines the editing of different films, especiallyUnknown pleasures, Still life (2006) and Ash is purest white (2018), with the addition of new footage, Adrift It offers a recap of the changes in China throughout this century through two recurring characters who become the intimate sounding board for the country's grandiose mutations. But Adrift It can also be read as a well-deserved tribute to one of the most powerful and least recognized actresses in contemporary cinema, Zhao Tao, whose evolution is captured here in all its nuances up to the magnificent final shot.

[You can consult the screenings at original version subtitled in Catalan at this link]