3/19/2023 0 Comments Prodeus lengthTo come back to how the film’s organized, something really struck me. It’s my feeling that it doesn’t matter whether it’s a happy ending or an exciting ending or a sad one. I can feel that I’ve experienced something new in a culture that I’m not a part of. We don’t always want films to complete the denouement, to reach a catharsis. I think it’s a strength of the work to leave it up to the viewer what to feel. Taking your life is also an act, maybe for him the same kind of act. Making a film is an execution of those ideas. Obviously these ideas and thoughts were part of Hu Bo. Lachman: You can always look back in retrospect. Being together, not alone, is for me a kind of happy end. Seeing those people playing with the shuttlecock Wei found earlier is happy - even for a little moment. Prodeus: The ending may not be a happy one for you, but it was for me. I read that as saying: you can kill yourself, but it won’t fix anything. At the bus station, Wang Jin tells Wei and Huang that they can go “over there,” but it’s not any better than here. In the film at least, Hu Bo is not recommending suicide to viewers. And then there is this other information.įilmmaker: For me Elephant has a positive message. I wanted you to experience the film without that information. So it’s really difficult to watch it without knowing what happened to him.Īudience member: How important is that to the film?Įd Lachman: I didn’t want to tell you that. Did you contemplate not talking about it?Īdriana Prodeus: I think in every description of the film you will find the information that this is the last movie by the director. Lachman and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot ( Hope and Glory, the Fantastic Beasts franchise) later offered additional observations in separate interviews.Īudience member: Obviously we know from the introduction what happened to the director. Filmmaker joined Lachman and critic and author Adriana Prodeus on a post-screening panel and Q&A session. He arranged for Elephant to be screened at Camerimage in Bydgoszcz. The independent distributor KimStim is releasing An Elephant Sitting Still theatrically beginning March 9.ĭynamic cinematography by Fan Chao helped bring the movie to the attention of Ed Lachman ( Far From Heaven, Carol), who saw it at Berlin and at last year’s New Directors/New Films. But it remains one of the most striking films of its time, distinguished by exceptional writing, directing and acting. The movie’s running time, difficult subject matter and troubled production have left an air of controversy around Elephant. Interlocking narratives follow a bullied high school student, an elderly parent pressured to move into a nursing home, a gangster who must avenge an attack on his brother and a girl’s illicit relationship with a married teacher. Nearly four hours long, the movie unfolds over the course of a day in and around a blue-collar housing development in a third-tier Chinese town. The debut feature from writer and director Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still, caused a sensation when it screened at the 2018 Berlinale. In Cinematographers, Filmmaking, InterviewsĪdriana Prodeus, An Elephant Sitting Still, Ed Lachman, Hu Bo, Philippe Rousselot
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