Screen/Society--"Ash is Purest White" (Jia Zhangke, 2019)
Sponsor(s): Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES), and Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI)
Cost: Free and Open to the Public
Film Screening:
"Ash is Purest White" ("Jiang hu er nu")
(Jia Zhangke, 2019, 141 min, China, Mandarin w/ English subtitles, Color, DCP)
Set over a 17-year period beginning in 2001, this epic romantic tragedy from Jia Zhangke unfolds with uncommon precision and disarming pathos. In a career-high performance, Zhao Tao stars as the fiercely loyal girlfriend of a local gangster played by Liao Fan. Enduring a prison sentence on his behalf, she emerges to find a changed China.
-- Introduced by Prof. Rey Chow (Program in Literature)
"This is one of Zhangke's peak achievements: pure cinema, and a story of the underworld unlike anything you've seen before." Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Contact: Hank Okazaki