Abstract
This article examines Ying Liang’s films to illustrate Chinese independent filmmakers’ growing propensity for representing regional space through innovative cinematic techniques. As one of the most conspicuous directors onstage in the 2000s, Ying Liang rekindles independent regional film following the legacy of Jia Zhangke’s hometown trilogy. Varying shooting angles and camera positions, his exemplar work of formalistic experimentation, The Other Half ( Ling yiban, 2006), presents space as a pivot of relations, within which the position of self and the situation of the local are intertwined. In line with Doreen Massey’s proposition for a spatial turn in theoretical conceptions, I argue that Ying Liang’s exploration of relational cinematic space, between on-screen and offscreen, from selfhood to nation, continues to challenge the legitimacy of the foretold metanarrative of national progression in which the countryside and inland cities belong to a bygone time that ought to be replaced in a forward-looking timeline. The explosive endings characteristic of Ying’s film oeuvre, in which all the imminent calamities happening to the region and its inhabitants eventually break out, belie the promise of a bright future told by the state and underline the symbolic violence endured by the local.
Highlights
Chinese independent cinema arose in the early 1990s against the dominance of Fifth Generation filmmaking and the encroachment of Hollywood blockbusters
On film viewership portals such as mtime. com, users pinpoint the lineage from Jia Zhangke to Ying Liang in Chinese independent cinema and the latter’s contribution to the independent mode of film production in present-day China
His film canvas displays an innovationalism in film style, epitomizing how younger independent filmmakers consciously break away from tradition and push realistic aesthetics to a further front, at a time when most Sixth Generation directors venture into commercial films
Summary
Chinese independent cinema arose in the early 1990s against the dominance of Fifth Generation filmmaking and the encroachment of Hollywood blockbusters. Com, users pinpoint the lineage from Jia Zhangke to Ying Liang in Chinese independent cinema and the latter’s contribution to the independent mode of film production in present-day China.4 The study of Ying’s films bears a threefold significance: First of all, his continued use of accent to depict local reality and the dire situation of underdevelopment is a relentless gesture against the dominance of official language about national prosperity.
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