ACMI presents
Mountains May Depart
山河故人
Tickets
When
Thu 15 Feb 2024
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A pre-millennial love triangle sends three people on three different life trajectories spanning Fenyang, Shanghai and Melbourne.
Jia Zhang-ke's... exploration of change, loss and regret has never felt more personal than in Mountains May Depart.
In the small city of Fenyang, three twenty-something friends are starting out in adult life. Tao (Shen Tao) works at a small electronics store and Liangzi works at the local coal mine that their wealthy friend Jinsheng has recently bought on a whim. When it becomes apparent that the two men habour unrequited feelings for Tao, Jinseng swiftly offers a promotion to Liangzi if he stops seeing her, but when he refuses he is immediately fired.
Severing their ties with one another, the two men continue to pursue Tao sending them down different paths in life spanning countries, decades and even generations.
Curator's Note
Jia Zhangke's quietly affecting melodrama prioritises the personal over the political by examining the effects of globalisation and sweeping social changes on a family over three decades.
Beginning with a rousing dance routine to the Pet Shop Boys' "Go West", the film asks how our identities change when we move between countries, but also when our countries and their national identities change around us.
Mountains May Depart premiered at the 68th Cannes Film Festival where it screened in competition.
Reece Goodwin, Curator (Film & TV)
