‘Platform’ shows Chinese Cultural Revolution

'Platform' directed by Jia Zhang-ke, is an epic masterpiece depicting the final vestiges of life under Chairman Mao of the Cultural Revolution and Westernized consumer capitalism.

Set between 1980 and 1990 it's a film about change in an ordinary but remote corner of China and a lot of the cues of cultural change are the clothes that the young people wear as their conservative society starts to cut loose.

The movie follows a half-dozen young members of a theater and music troupe, starting in the immediate post-Mao era. They start testing the limits of style and behaviour to a parent-shocking (though not American-shocking) degree. Boys wear bell-bottoms. Girls smoke cigarettes. There's even a hint of kissing (still artfully concealed even for the present-day censors), as the young man Cui Mingliang, in typically oblique Chinese fashion, mentions casually to his female companion Yin Ruijian, "Someone asked me if you were my girlfriend. Is that true?" It's all so scandalous - for its time.

But times change - the first sign of which is troupe heartthrob Zhang Jun's return from a trip to Guanghzhou (Canton city, near Hong Kong) with a flashy orange and blue T-shirt bearing Japanese writing, and a boombox with tapes of the latest Hong Kong and Taiwanese rock.

Soon, private shops are supplying fashionable clothing from the outside world and we see Ruijian in previously unheard-of high heels and fashionable capris. The young twenty-somethings are soon holding hands in public and trying to secretly pair up in hotel rooms on tour.

The film stars Wang Hongwei, Zhao Tao, Liang Jingdong, Yang Tianyi and Wang Bo. The film in Chinese with English subtitles will be released on Tuesday, August 7 at 3 pm on and Wednesday, August 8 at 6.30 pm at Alliance Francaise at Barnes Place, Colombo-7.