Temporalities of Modernity in Jia Zhangke's Still Life

Abstract

The essay attempts to unravel the complex intertwinement of different temporalities in Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (2006). Set at the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest power station, the film focuses on the large-scale demolition process in the background: due to the dam’s reservoir, a large area has to be flooded, requiring the relocation of more than a million people. Against the background of the intersection of temporal lines of modernisation and nostalgia that still have a goal or starting point which structures their temporality, Jia uses a distinctive blend of realist and fictional elements to portray the uncertain present as a time of displacement, searching, and wandering. The essay proposes a reading of temporal and narrative structures of Jia’s films through Jacques Rancière’s recent writings on the social hierarchies implied by the temporalities of modernity and his understanding of the reversal of these hierarchies in realist literature and film.