This film is part of our series BUITENBEENTJES: CAST OUT, showing in January and February at De Uitkijk.
Filmmaker Jia Zhangke, whose films are banned in China, paints a raw portrait of the so-called "birth-control generation" in Unknown Pleasures. Against the backdrop of a changing China, where capitalist influences permeate every layer of society and Western influences make their way in, this lost generation grapples with uncertainty, individualism, and aimlessness.
The film follows Xia Ji and Bin, two unemployed young men in their twenties, who spend their days idling on the streets of Datong, Northern China. Xia Ji harbors grand dreams and wishes to die young, like in American crime films. Bin Bin, on the other hand, is trapped in lethargy and struggles to adapt to the rapidly changing world around him.