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Still Life
New Yorker Films

Still Life reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 81 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.4 out of 10
based on 10 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Tao Zhao, and Sanming Han

Sam Ming makes a trip to the City of Fenjge to find his ex-wife and daughter. He has not seen them for several years. (Ad Vitam)


GENRE(S): Drama  |  Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Zhang Ke Jia
Na Guan
Jiamin Sun
 
DIRECTED BY: Zhang Ke Jia  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: November 25, 2008 
Theatrical: January 18, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: China / Hong Kong 
LANGUAGE(S): Mandarin 

Alternative Title: Sanxia haoren

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
TV Guide Ken Fox
Few of China's Sixth Generation filmmakers have turned to their country's explosive economic growth and its attendant upheavals with so sharp an eye and so heavy a heart as Jia Zhang-ke.
Read Full Review
100
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
More than a million people have been displaced in central China in the cause of generating electrical power to meet the needs of the future; Jia's flowing river of a picture washes over a few of them as they adjust to life's currents in the present.
Read Full Review
100
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The first great film of the year. It’s beautiful but so much more—full of subtle feeling, framed by a monstrous, eroding landscape.
Read Full Review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
Perhaps Jia is trying to prove the point that the future has already arrived. Or perhaps he is suggesting that the truth is stranger than science fiction. This is today's China: Anything is possible.
Read Full Review
80
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This 2006 drama may seem to be worlds apart from the surreal theme-park setting of Jia's previous film, "The World," but there are similarities of theme, style, scale, and tone: social and romantic alienation in a monumental setting, a daring poetic mix of realism and lyrical fantasy, and an uncanny sense of where our planet is drifting.
Read Full Review
80
Village Voice J. Hoberman
As usual, Jia's people tend toward the opaque--one of the movie's most enthusiastic conversations is conducted with ringtones. But his compositions have their own eloquence. Everything's despoiled and yet--as rendered in cinematographer Yu Lik-wai's rich, impossibly crisp HD images--everything is beautiful.
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
A modern master of postmodern discontent, Jia Zhang-ke is among the most strikingly gifted filmmakers working today whom you have probably never heard of.
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75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
There is no turning back; the biggest project in China since the Great Wall and the Grand Canal has claimed its human cost and now must prove its own worth. -
Read Full Review
70
The New Yorker David Denby
Despite all this desolation and depression, however, Still Life is an extremely beautiful movie.
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50
Variety Derek Elley
Has almost zero plot but molto mood. It will appeal to the most faithful of the director's camp-followers and no one else.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Robert H. gave it a7:
The film has it's moments but when compared to the director's previous efforts the filmmaking here strikes me as far too lazy, relying too much on the backdrop and nonactors at the cost of lackadaisical narrative. if you don't edit your view of life enough to focus our attention where's the art?

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