The World

“Suggesting at different moments a backstage musical, a failed love story, a surreal comedy, and even a cartoon fantasy, this beautiful, corrosive, visionary masterpiece by Jia Zhang-ke is a frighteningly persuasive account of the current state of the planet. Set in an eerie Beijing theme park — a kind of Chinese Las Vegas, with scaled-down duplicates of the most famous global landmarks — it follows a bunch of workers as they labour, carouse, couple, and uncouple, but it’s really about propping up extravagant illusions through alienated labour” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). ”In his fourth film — and the first not to be banned in China — Jia turns Beijing’s real-life World Park, with its tacky reproductions of the world’s cultural wonders, into a derisive microcosm of China today. As Tao (Zhao Tao), an actress in the site’s bland pageantry, and her boyfriend, Taisheng (Chen Taisheng), a security guard, ponder whether to marry, it seems not to matter: like their friends and colleagues, they struggle vainly for money, for love, and, mostly, for escape . . . Jia’s tenderness for his characters is infused with a quiet rage (Richard Brody, New Yorker). “A glorious achievement” (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly). Colour, 35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles. 140 mins.