Thursday, January 10, 2013
Beijing Bicycle
Wang Xiaoshuai's film Beijing Bicycle is ultimately a film about the effects of "modernization" in China. I'd like you to read this essay and discuss the film's narrative and what you feel is the implied meaning of the film as a whole. Choose one scene and analyze the scene fully and cinematically and tell me why you chose the scene and what is the scene's relationship to the film as a whole.
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I feel that the implied meanings of the film is that people who appear to be well-off may simply be acting out a lie, and that class boundaries are more blurred than one may originally think. This is made clear with the character of Jian. While he appears to be wealthy, as a result of his clothes and his schooling, his father is not able to buy him a bike either because he is too poor to do so or because he has other priorities, and he lives in a cramped house with many other people.
ReplyDeleteThe scene I have chosen starts around one hour and twenty-six minutes into the film. In it, Mantis and Guei are sitting inside of Mantis' store. Mantis informs Guei that Qin, the woman previously thought to be a rich city girl, was only a maid, and that her employers have fired her. This scene, as well as a prior scene in which Qin looks through the store as if she has lost something and is found and chastised by her employers, connect to one of the film's main concepts. These scenes demonstrate that class boundaries are hazy and that one's social distinctions are not what other people may assume. Guei and Mantis had assumed throughout the film that she was rich, and that she spent all day trying on clothes, but they find out that she was simply wearing the clothes of her employer. The clothes reveal that Qin, like Jian, attempted to present himself as wealthier than she truly was with possessions and her outward appearance, but the reality of the situation was much less glamorous.
I feel the film’s narrative deals with the struggle of urban living. The film revolves around the desire for a bicycle, although the desires are different. Guei needs it for survival purposes (to keep his job which will open opportunities to him and help him survive in the city), while Jian needs it for status and materialistic purposes (to hang with his ‘cool’ friends and have what all the kids have). Both desire the bike and need it for their urban lives. Although, Guei’s is more practical, this does not necessarily make it more important than Jian’s need for the bicycle. Making (and keeping) friends at his age is difficult, in the sense that relationships are very superficial at that age, which is the reason why having a bicycle (the cool thing to own) is of such an importance to him. Jian is almost less mature than Guei, because he is still concerned with material things. To him, needing the bike for his social purposes is as important as Guei needing it for making a living for himself. When Jian lets Guei keep the bike, I feel that is Jian maturing and growing up, also a bit of stubbornness and sulk over the pain the bike has cost him and losing Xiao. Jian is saying that Guei’s need for the bike is more important than his own. Although Jian was probably not thinking most of this and just wanted to forget the pain associated with the bike, this simple act could imply all of that. Also, Jian probably thought of Guei’s need of the bike as more important than his own some point while they were sharing it. The film as a whole deals with urban survival and the tool for survival was the bicycle, which for both people opened opportunities and provided them with things that were not accessible without it.
ReplyDeleteThe scene I picked starts at 1:24:03 and ends at 1:26:03. This scene is the montage of the bike exchange between Guei and Jian. This scene shows the relationship between the two boys and shows the importance of the bicycle, because the whole scene (and why the two meet) revolves around it. The opening shot is a LS of Guei sitting against a wall writing something down. There is a lot of empty space in the shot. There is less empty space when Jain comes in riding the bike, to give to Guei. This is similar with other shots, with empty space surrounding the character waiting for the bike. This shows how empty the character feels without it, they need the bike. It fills a desire they yearn for. In regards to editing, it shows the growth in the relationship between the two boys. The first shot is very long and shows Guei inspecting the bike for a while, then thanking Jian and riding away. The shots get shorter and shorter and the characters are no longer shown inspecting the bike. The long shot at the beginning shows the awkwardness of this exchange and how it is also something new to both boys. The inspection they perform on the bike shows how they don’t fully trust each other yet. The shots get shorter to show how this is getting more routine, less awkward, and it just happens. Also, there is no dialogue between the characters, and with the use of the music, it seems silent (but it is not, which is evident by the sounds the bike makes). The characters do not know each other and are not trying. Also, the shot composition is similar. It is further back from the characters and in a similar location each time. Things change though with the last shot. The camera is in a different location. This gives the feeling that something different will happen, this is also supported with the stopping of the music. The two figures are equal size on screen and the bike is in the middle, the center, the focus. The bike brings these two together. Then, Jian puts his hand out and asks Guei for his name. After all this time of exchanging the bike, they never got to know each other, so Jian makes the first move.
ReplyDeleteI picked this scene, because I found it extremely charming with its use of music and how Jian innocently asks for Guei’s name, as if accepting him as a human being. This scene projects a very happy, but sad feeling throughout, mostly through the use of the happy with a sad undertone music, showing how these two boys can both keep the bike, but what do they do when they don’t have it? The question is answered when you see Guei running to his next delivery after exchanging the bike, so you feel pity for Guei and want Jian to give it to him, but Jian redeems himself by asking for his name and accepting Guei as a human. In relation to the film as a whole shows the back and forth feeling this film has about the bicycle. It goes from Guei to Jian and the other way around. Then you feel happy, and then you feel sad for Guei and occasionally for Jian. It’s almost as if the film did not know what to do with itself, but it shows the ups and downs (backs and forths) of life.
I found Beijing Bicycle's narrative interesting, nuanced, and unexpected. I thought the use of the bicycle of the narrative force - and therefore the way its current owner took over as protagonist of the story - was inspired, and was an equalizing force that drew parallels between the completely impoverished migrant worker and the seemingly privileged teenage student. The film is implicitly about the way modernization can lead to the creation of abstract and arbitrary division lines of wealth, power, and circumstance, and how those on opposing sides are much more similar in circumstance than appears or is acknowledged.
ReplyDeleteThe scene I chose that I felt displayed this meaning begins at 25:02. Guei has just been fired from his job for losing the bike and neglecting to deliver a package. At the beginning of the scene his boss is seen apologizing vehemently to an angered (and powerful) client. The boss is seen in a mid-shot that displays his obvious anxiety and fear of trouble over the situation, with his body and hands shaking. As soon as he hangs up, Guei steps into the shot, and the boss adopts a tone of condescension and cold uncaring sternness. As Guei's boss switches gear from powerless to powerful, he steps away from where he was standing and sits down. The camera moves slightly and Guei is framed exactly as his boss was at the beginning of the scene, cowering in front of a higher power that has control over him. Guei's boss immediately takes the opportunity to assert himself over Guei the way his clients did over him.
I picked this scene because it depicts the arbitrary class distinctions that members of society enforce in their conduct. The scene shows that just as Guei is to his boss, his boss is to a wealthy and disgruntled client - a groveling, powerless underling desperately looking for pity and forgiveness. While Guei's boss clearly pretends to Guei that he is a wholly powerful figure, he is completely at the beck-and-call of his customers' temperaments.
This all reminds me of a Mr. Show skit that I think relates to this idea of self-imposed class distinction and power struggle, "Change for a Dollar": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGuT97v4pv0
I forgot the password for the gale site so I couldn’t read the essay but I feel that Beijing Bicycle is about the importance of material possessions to a modernized China. When Guo is first introduced to his new bike in his job as a courier, he is told that it is state-of-the-art. This bike presumably comes to represent some magnificent element of city life for him which before he did not have access to. It’s a symbol of wealth, just like the woman he sees standing in the window every day. Perhaps it also means more to him because in the country things in general are not as disposable as they are in the city. The bike is an expensive thing that he can possess. Similarly, for Jian the bike is a source of self-worth. He is embarrassed to not have a bike like his friends and he goes so far as to steal his family’s money for it. He believes a bike will make him cool like the kid who performs tricks and smokes. The bike helps him meet a girl and he will not even speak to her without it.
ReplyDeleteBeijing Bicycle is also about the alienation of the countryside in a modernized China. When Guo, a boy from the country, goes to the hotel to deliver something for Mr.Zheng, he enters a very uncomfortable situation. He is mistaken for a customer and told to go up the showers. The camera shows him walking to the shower naked, exposed and uncomfortable. A sudden cut to Guo in the shower is an abrupt shift in diegetic sound, from near silence to the sound of running water, and it emphasizes how jolting this experience is for Guo. As he finds his first Mr.Zheng, the man is faceless through most of the scene with his head turned away from the viewer, indicating that this wealthy man is intimidating to poor, meek Guo, framed to be small in the doorway, who does not understand the situation he is in and is unsure of what to do. As he goes to the front desk he’s told that he has to pay for the shower he took. The camera remains focused on Guo for a painful minute, showing his silent, confused reaction. Mr.Zheng (the real one) appears and he too has his head turned to the viewer.
This scene is important because it shows how cryptic city life is for Guo, particularly the lives of the wealthy, and thus how significant it is that he can possess this fantastic, expensive element of the city. It also demonstrates his simplicity in understanding things, which is the reason he has such a one-track mind in refusing to relinquish the bike and caring only about making it his own again.