Review: An Elephant Sitting Still

Summary

A heavy theme gets an equally weighty length in this four-hour film about individuals prioritising their own gains in a interconnected society.

It will always be difficult to separate AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL from the tragedy surrounding it. Following the production of this four-hour musing on a self-centred society, filmmaker Hu Bo took his own life at the age of 29. The often bleak film is an endurance test, but as the writer/director would probably remind us, so is life.

Based on a story from Hu’s 2017 novel Huge Crack, the four main protagonists in the film are going through some seriously tough times. A man witnesses the suicide death of a friend partly due to his own infidelity. An elderly man is being forced into a nursing home by his son. A young boy puts a bully in hospital after pushing him down some stairs. His female classmate has a troubled relationship with her mother, and turns to a teacher for an extramarital affair.

Let’s not mince words. This is a long film. It’s not Béla Tarr peeling a potato long, but you feel every inch of it. Which is clearly the point Hu was trying to make. As one character points out, “Life just won’t get better. It’s all about agony.” It’s a clear warning sign of where Hu’s head was at during the production of the film, and it permeates the grey-slated unhappiness that drenches every inch of the narrative.

Hu’s portrait of a self-centred society is relentlessly nihilistic in its outlook. An elderly man is abused for reporting that his dog was attacked, the owners of the other dog only thinking as far as what it will cost them. A schoolgirl is labelled a “slut” when her relationship with the teacher is discovered, while the teacher remains blameless. Even the best of intentions are betrayed by the deceit of friends in Hu’s story. “The world is just disgusting,” concludes another character.

The only glimmer of hope comes from a shared goal. The film takes it’s name from the circus in the city of Manzhouli, where the titular beast simply sits while the world carries on around it. The various stories begin to intersect as the characters are drawn to the story, perhaps hoping against hope that a change of scene will alter their fate.

Plainly shot by Fan Chao, the slate colour palette is backed by virtually no music and natural audio tracks. It adds to the gritty realism of the northern Chinese setting, even if it’s an aesthetic reminder of the unending disappointments of life.

AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL is a collective cinema experience about the futility of existence, and as the credits roll over a moment of reverie, one realises that these shared moments are kind of the point. For some this will be the ultimate marathon, a microcosm of life that’s just too bleak for the hours of pummelling. The rest of us will simply be wondering what else we might have been able to expect from a promising life cut short.