Summary
What is art? Ponder that during the incredibly measured pace of this highly detailed Chinese animated film from Liu Jian.
Liu Jian’s animated film opens with a quote from James Joyce’s The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” Like one of his leads Xiaojun (voiced here by Dong Zijian), Jian studied Chinese painting in the ‘90s. So, from the start ART COLLEGE 1994 is arguably his attempt at an autobiographical look back at art college days in China during the 1990s.
China was undergoing some major social change during this time, with western influences intersecting with traditional culture. We see this in the painful and hilarious lectures the students have to attend with titles like ‘Western Philosophy and Chinese Culture.’ Still, there’s a universality to much of the film.
Along with art school colleague Rabbit, and music students and potential love interests Lili and Hong, Xiaojun attempts to navigate their day-to-day existence while asking all the big questions. Much of this is done through long takes of the various characters pondering the meaning of art. Can anything be art? Does that make anyone an artist? If so, why are they all in art school? Is that person interested in me? What the hell will they do when we leave college?
It’s a simple affair. At times, it’s disarmingly wry and insightfully funny. At others, it feels almost documentary in nature. There are minor fights, sure, but most conflicts and dramas come about through moments of indecision or life’s turning points. Hong dates a lot, deciding between a cash job and a singing career, while Lili finds herself drifting towards the stability of an unexciting marriage.
Liu Jian’s film has a firm sense of place. The highly detailed backgrounds are clearly taken from reference photos during this wistful look back at days spent in the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts during the 1990s. The textures on the wall, and the structures of buildings and bridges, are all meticulously detailed.
Yet it’s the little details that make all the difference to every scene. Nirvana tape covers, movie posters, and t-shirts add to the period setting. Given that Jian spends so long on each scene, and the line art of the main characters is fairly straightforward, we get time to appreciate how much texture is put into the walls, trees, or even piles of bowls left lying around the dorm room.
ART COLLEGE 1994 is ultimately too long for its subject matter. At close to two hours, it pushes past a natural stopping point on more than one occasion in the last act. Yet life in college or university is a bit like that. It’s a lot of the same thing over and over again, it feels like it will never end, and then it’s over.
2023 | China | DIRECTOR: Liu Jian | WRITER: Lin Shan, Liu Jian | CAST: Dong Zijian, Zhou Dongyu, Jia Zhangke | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2023 | RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 7-18 June 2023 (SFF 2023)
