Regional Filmmaking After Jia Zhangke: Relational Cinematic Space and Ying Lianga??s The Other Half

摘要

This article examines Ying Lianga??s films to illustrate Chinese independent filmmakersa?? 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 Zhangkea??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 Masseya??s proposition for a spatial turn in theoretical conceptions, I argue that Ying Lianga??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 Yinga??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.