Pickpocket

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🎙️ EPISODE 708: 04.24.23 PART OF THE JIA ZHANGKE DIRECTOR FOCUS Maybe this is the beginning of something I'm destined to see, realize or understand, or perhaps I'll remain forever in the dusty outskirts, my eyes clouded and brain full of fog; unable to relate though not because I don't want to. That's what we mean when we say "lot in life," ya know. Lots being places, or "a lot" (or "a little," perhaps) of something; could be the backdrop of the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the UK to China in 1997. An event in time which looks exactly like post-COVID, late-stage capitalist South NJ, 2023. Everything looks exactly like everything else if you look at it right. I've stolen. And been left behind by friends.

In addition to the constant rain of street noise, we hear audio from TV shows or radios and state announcements on loudspeakers. But never see where it's coming from. It's just part of the soundtrack. Then: Things just happen. Things just happen. The things themselves seem less important than the perverse inevitability that they will indeed.... continue to just happen; I hate this word, but I'm thinking: ennui. I usually love my ass some piping hot ennui-laced action, but I'm not fully connecting with J.Z. two films in. Perhaps it's the cultural divide, or perhaps it's his leaning too hard into the lassitude and malaise of life around the turn of the century (which feels like a bind fairly immune from geographical limitations, again: in the right light). 只有時間會給出答案。

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 707 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 709 ⫸

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Xiao Wu (Chinese: 小武), also known as Pickpocket, is a 1997 Chinese drama and the first directed by Jia Zhangke. Starring Wang Hongwei in the titular role along with Hao Hongjian and Zuo Baitao, it was filmed in Fenyang, Jia's hometown, in 16 mm. It was released on February 18, 1997.