Content
- On Wang Bing and Pedro Costa
- One Battle After Another review
- New albums
On Wang Bing and Pedro Costa
Jack Chain
I recently went back to read the Metrograph interview with Wang Bing and Pedro Costa. Since I’m interested in both of them, I figured it was time to write down my thoughts on their films.
Director Wang Bing is someone who dares to rebel against the film system and yearns for freedom. In stark contrast to Lou Ye’s films, which seem suspended, Wang Bing’s cinema is rooted in the land, sincerely conversing with every “actor.” I put “actor” in quotation marks because of the very nature of documentary filmmaking—each person filmed is their own storyteller, possessing a dynamic individuality. I recall Chantal Akerman using a panning shot in D’Est (1993) to film a line of people, men and women, young and old, their expressions almost identical. But Akerman is masterful; the documentary itself maintains an observational stance, making it hard to directly inject one’s own emotion. Yet, she skillfully handles the camera usage. Did she know each person well? She didn’t even have time to get to know them. But it is precisely through these repeated moments of stopping, shifting, that the act of filming itself becomes a diary, an emotional record. Wang Bing is similar. He may not know the names of everyone in the Huzhou children’s clothing factory, but he embeds a trigger, allowing the emotions of the subjects to infect the audience’s feelings. This is difficult for a large group of extras to manage, and Wang Bing’s camera serves as an auxiliary text in this regard. Some might feel this relies on the actors’ resonance rather than Wang Bing, but I’d argue that if Wang Bing were limited to just following or fixing the camera, he would absolutely not achieve this effect. In the undulations of the camera, our heartbeats synchronize with all the crew members.
I didn’t get to know Director Costa early. At the time, I was lucky enough to find the film resource for O Sangue (1989), but frankly, I wasn’t very interested in him then, although looking back now, some of the lighting choices truly surprise me. Later, I watched Juventude em Marcha (2003) , and at the time, I didn’t recognize its significance, but the experimental nature he displayed (determined by his camera type and style) was astonishing and groundbreaking. I have a few photographs that imitate the low-angle shots of Ventura, but in reality, that fusion of distortion and reality was not built unintentionally. Furthermore, the extended composition intends to expand the depth of vision. Even in the narrow alleys, the writing of real-life scenes flows through, making the overall content exceptionally rich, just as we might use the corner of a wall as a screen to reveal the true intended expression. At the same time, this is inseparable from the core meaning of Costa’s work—humanitarian concern—which is in opposition to Béla Tarr and resonates with Akerman, and can even be said to possess more real-world significance than the habitually rigorous Straub-Huillet. The effective use of static shots allows us to observe the whole picture, as if continuously watching a smoker—we can see the smoke exhale from their mouth, gradually unfurl, and finally disappear into the air. This calm probing makes it difficult for the camera to even fully grasp the living landscape of Lisbon, and the open embrace is more like the drifting yet clear posture of a documentary, present in every field that is presented.
Wang Bing and Costa: one challenges the existing system, eager to display freedom; the other has relevant experience but, as an exile, they both chronicle the overlooked. Wang Bing is uncovering a group of people, while Costa is blowing up a type of person by taking cross-sections of a few individuals.
One Battle After Another review
Jack Chain
The extremely strong sense of discontinuity, I wonder if it is meant to depict the shifting transformation of the landscape, but it seems more like PTA’s (Paul Thomas Anderson’s) experimentation with style. We can see echoes of Vertigo and Lost Highway, as well as familiar techniques like blurring and close-ups. The unity of convergence and divergence maintains the purpose of all connections, and the pursuit and stasis conceal the geological structure of the space. However, the clumsy cleverness relying on sound to attract attention reveals a lack of confidence in time, even betraying a slight sense of panic.
New Albums
Trying Not to Have a Thought
Genre: rock
Release time: 9/12/2025
The Beneficial Society
Genre: rock
Release time: 9/26/2025
Internet
Genre: rock
Release time: 9/24/2025
