“An Elephant Sitting Still” A solitary 234 minutes that shows the “voiceless scream”



*Information as of November 2019 article publication.

*This article touches on the core of the story, so we recommend reading it after watching the movie.

"An Elephant Sitting Still" Synopsis

morning.

<Chen>

Chen (Chang Yu) wakes up in his best friend's wife's room.

As I was taking a sip, my best friend suddenly knocked on the door.

“Is anyone there?”

He tries to hide in a corner, but the door opens and his best friend comes in.

“Was it you?”

With one look at Chen, his best friend jumped out the window right in front of him.

<gin>

An old man named Jing (Li Zhongxi) wakes up in a narrow tatami room next to a window.

"Rent in the educational district costs three times as much as normal."

In order for their granddaughter to go on to higher education, her husband and wife plan to take advantage of the move and place him in a nursing home.

``Father-in-law, we are having a hard time too.'' Selfish family members.

While out for a walk, Jin's dog is bitten by another dog.

<Rin>

Lin (Wang Yuwen) is getting ready in a dark, closed room.

Empty cans were scattered on the floor, and laundry was left to dry. The toilet is leaking again.

The mother wakes up after being splashed with water by Rin.

"I have a cake, I bought it for you."

There is a crushed birthday cake in a box on the desk.

Sighing, I headed to the school and visited the vice principal with whom I had a relationship.

<Boo>

Bu's (Peng Yu-chan) friend Kai is suspected of stealing a cell phone and is involved with Shuai, a delinquent.

``He didn't steal.'' Boo protects Kai.

An angry Shuai grabbed Boo's bag and held her down. Boo tries to shake it off.

The reaction causes Shuai to fall down the stairs. A dull sound echoes around.

Boo ran away from the scene.

Boo runs away and Shuai's brother Chen chases after him. After seeing a flyer about a big circus that he picked up on the bus, Boo becomes curious about the existence of a strange elephant that just sits all day long, and invites Jin and Rin to head to the far end of Manzhouli, 2300km away. Plan...

Index

• The first feature and posthumous work of a new Chinese director
• Escape from the stifling world
• “Voiceless scream” and “voice of hope”
• The purity and immaturity that emerges in the last scene

The first feature and posthumous work of a new Chinese director

``The Elephant An Elephant Sitting Still,'' a film adaptation of a short story from his own book, is the first feature-length work by Hu Bo, a rising Chinese director who was taught by the talented Hungarian director Tal Béla. At the same time, it became a posthumous work. He was only 29 years old and took his own life after completing this work.

One theory is that the reason for his suicide was due to friction with the producer, who requested that the 234-minute (almost 4 hours) film be shortened to less than 120 minutes, but is this The Truth? As we don't know him or the surrounding circumstances, there is no way to judge. What is certain is that this film, which was not cut short as a result of this incident, became a film that was burdened with its sensationalism, whether it be true or not.

“An Elephant Sitting Still” Preview

The story follows four main characters as they face unbearable reality in a Chinese provincial city with an abandoned coal mine. A young man commits suicide by jumping in front of his best friend after having an affair with his best friend's wife. An old man whose family keeps persuading him to move into a nursing home because his granddaughter wants to go to college. A girl who is constantly in conflict with her mother and secretly has a relationship with a male teacher at school. Then, due to a certain incident, a boy wanders from place to place, unable to return home to his violent father.

Eventually, they were drawn to the story of a strange elephant that apparently sits in a zoo in Manzhouli, on the Russian border, 2,300 kilometers from the city... go.

Escape from the stifling world