Wang Xiaoshuai's film Beijing Bicycle is ultimately a film about the effects of "modernization" in China. I'd like you to read this essay and discuss the film's narrative and what you feel is the implied meaning of the film as a whole. Choose one scene and analyze the scene fully and cinematically and tell me why you chose the scene and what is the scene's relationship to the film as a whole.
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ReplyDeleteI feel like the "modernization" in China represented in this movie affects these two teenage boys differently than the rest of society. The implied meaning behind the film is ultimately just wanting to fit in; whether it be Guei using it to try to fit in to this new city or Jian using it to fit in with his peers at school.
ReplyDeleteThe scene in the middle of the movie were Guei manages to return the bike back to his former job, he is seen on the floor grasping the bike and he is shown from a high angle which juxtaposes the the shot right afterwards, of his boss at a low angle looking down at Guei. This contrast represents the difference in position of power between the two characters.
Beijing Bicycle depicts two boys in a very similar situation of poverty in a modernized china. While their golden ticket isn't exactly the most material object possible, it seems to represent desire. Desire when mixed with poverty can result in seemingly two paths. Guei takes the path of hard work and sacrifice while Jian resorts to violence and theft.
ReplyDeleteThe film as a whole is a commentary on desire and materialism, which is a fact of life in modernized countries. A scene that demonstrates this is when Jian and his friends are trying to make a deal with Guei over the bike. Jian is out into a passive role, leaving the true bullying to his friends. He's not shown at a low angle dominating Guei. Who is portrayed as desperate, clutching his bike at a high angle. In this scene both boys' desires and how they handle them are shown head to head. There is little to no lighting, highlighting the feeling of desperation. The editing accomplished the same tone by slowing down the time progression and showing down the standoff. They are both shown as desperate, equal in that sense as well as with the bike. While also showing how each handles the situation.
Wang Xiaoshuai, in his film "Beijing Bicycle", portrays China's rapid modernization and urbanization at the turn of the century. Xiaoshuai focuses on the effects of modernization on the working class of China, particularly people who moved from China's countryside to the urban centers (such as Beijing). In terms of plot and theme, Xiaoshuai borrows heavily from Vittorio de Sica's "Bicycle Thieves". In addition to centering around bicycles, both films deal with class issues, and the main ideas can summed up in one main point: the lower class, no matter how hard they work, will always be at the mercy of those who are richer than them. Rather than simply reiterating these themes, Xiaoshuai builds on them by using the oppressive nature of the city cinematically to emphasize the burden of the working class.
ReplyDeleteAn example of Xiaoshuai's depiction of the city is the many wide shots containing dozens of bikers on a dauntingly wide highway, a crowd into which Guei almost disappears. These shots help not only to convey the sheer size of the city, but also demonstrate that Guei is one of many people trying to make a decent living. This point is further elaborated in the labyrinth-like neighborhoods in which Guei and Jian reside. While they are an accurate representation of certain neighborhoods in Beijing, they also add to the idea that leaving the working class life behind is similar to walking a labyrinth. Furthermore, it adds depth to the city, which in turn emphasizes the daunting size of Beijing, arguably moreso than the tall buildings.
The parallel nature of this narrative is unusual when compared with other American films, but it works very well when depicting both sides of the modernized-China story. The film first tells Guei's side of the story, that of a young boy from the country side who migrated by himself to the industrialized city in an attempt to find work. At first, the narrative begs sympathy for his character, showing the struggles he faced. But then the narrative switches over to Jian's side of the story, revealing that he bought the stolen bicycle, a symbol of his modern status among his peers. The film now asks us to sympathize with a teenage boy who just wants to fit in, a story relatable to many young audiences all over the world. By the end, the two boys are both the victims of this duel narrative, and we feel sympathetic toward both sides.
ReplyDeleteBut the merging of these two narratives is anything but pretty. In the scene where Guei confronts Jian over the bike at Jian's house, the tension between the boys escalates to its peak. Neither of them have all the facts, and a fight breaks out between them that gets Jian's father involved. Surprisingly, the camera stays in one place instead of cutting rapidly between all the little movements of a fight, and it stays at eye level. This is because each of the characters think that they are right, which also makes them think they’re even with each other. The similar heights of all the characters adds to this.
Also interesting is how both Guei and Jian's father wear neutral-toned clothes, but Jian has a white shirt under a black suit. On the outside he seems guilty, though on the inside he is innocent… But is he really? Jian sees the world in a very black-and-white way—he deserves the bike so it's right for him to have it—when both Guei and Jian's father know the struggles of modern China are much more complicated than that. Not to mention that Jian's sister lurks silently in the background in bright yellow, standing on the threshold that elevates her to their level. She's in the back of Jian's mind when he talks about feeling cheated out of a bike; she’s elevated by Jian's father while Jian is left to stand on his own two feet. This scene is important because it represents the confrontation of two different lifestyles coming to a head, both of which are more similar than each side thinks in their struggle to survive in rapidly-changing China.
In his film, "Beijing Bicycle", Wang Xiaoshuai depicts the effects of rapid urbanization and modernization in Chinese society. By creating two parallel universes, tied together by the common thread of thriving socially and economically in the society they live in. By contrasting the lives pf Guei and Jian, Xiaoshuai successfully exposes the duality of life and how everyone aspires to be of good social and economic standing. Guei is a migrant worker who migrates to Beijing in order to find work. Through excessive hard work and dedication, he is able to thrive in his new occupation which goes well until his bicycle gets stolen. This portrayal of a hard working individual who initially had nothing but slowly began making his way up the social and economic ladder creates sympathy within the audience especially when his bicycle gets stolen. And although the audience feels angry towards the thief, Xiaoshuai cleverly depicts the other side of the story through a parallel narrative. Jian, a boy whose desire is to have a bicycle but is refused repeatedly, steals money from his family and buys a bike from a secondhand source, the bike that had been stolen from Guei. The portrayal of Jian's story once again stimulates sympathy wthin the audience, as Xiaoshuai intended. This duality of life ultimately exposes how as society progresses and is modernized, the basic values and desire does not progress along with it. Both Guei and Jian, who are different in many respects but same in their yearning or desire, demonstrate how ultimately we are all the same, desiring to achieve social and economic standing. For Guei, this was through hard work in his occupation. For Jian, it was through obtaining a bicycle to impress and be with the girl he likes. This reality of life is what brings everyone together.
ReplyDeleteIn the scene where Jian's father admonishes and accuses him of stealing Guei's bike, Xiaoshuai utilizes a mdeium, eye level shot. The purpose of this was to demonstrate how this was a typical situation that could have happened to anyone living in this modernized city of Beijing. The eye-level shot doesn't insinuate any feelings of dominance or inferiority of any of the characters which adds onto the feeling of realism. This is important because it is evident this film had been inspired by "Bicycle Thieves", an Italian neorealist films. Such as that, this scene and the use of the eye level shot successfully portrays the struggle and confrontations that might occur in the working class. Along with that, the long shot of Guei riding away on his bike as Jian can be seen in the background trying to stop him portrays the unfairness of life. Even though the bike was Guei's, the audience still sympathizes with Jian who bought the bike with stolen money so that he could ultimately fit in with society. As Guei rides away on the bike, it leaves the audience to witness the unfulfillment of Jian's desire.
Wang Xiaoshuai's "Beijing Bicycle" is a personal treatise on the rapid reshaping of China's post-Maoist economic landscape to befit the exponential westernization of the world state, and how such changes have affected China's social climate and the lives of the least powerful living within it. He depicts in the film the disparate lives of two of China's growing youth subcultures-Guei, who represents the poor migrant worker seeking work in the alien and inhospitable culture of the Big economic cities, and Jian, the marginally more well off city kid growing up entranced within the new Western ideologies and seeking social prestige through material gain in the face of his traditionalist parents-and how both the outsider of the old values and the patron of the new conflict over shared overlapping necessity. For Guei, dogged and pacifistic in his determination, the bicycle is his lifeblood. Without it, he is without job, livelihood, and he is a failure in a foreign world completely uncaring if he lives or not. For Jian, the bicycle is prestige, to be above the outdated Confucian lifestyle of his old poor father, and to have the confidence and status to be someone in the new, cool Westernized China.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Guei's reasons are more sympathetic than Jians. Yet the crux of the matter is, both are ultimately victims of the materialist capitalism that has completely taken hold of them in their society-emphasized in the final scene, wherein both Guei and Jian are cornered by a gang of trendy teens, the leader of whom Jian beat with a brick due to emasculating him and taking his earlier social standing. The scene begins with a shot reverse shot of the gang, then Guei and Jian, and then the gang again as they slowly advance on the boys. The camera here is still, and juxtaposes the power of the gang as they dominate the camera's focus and movement. If advances along with them, cornering Guei and forcing Jian smaller and smaller and more trapped in the center until the gang unloads on both, hiding the majority of the violence through camera angles and obstruction. Even its occasionally glimpses into the admittedly disturbing beating is kept at a distance. To contrast, when one particularly malicious boy sees Guei's bike and decides to dish his own wanton destruction upon it, seemingly at a pure whim, the camera is either close to each blow, or keeps the beating within the background perpetually. This emphasizes the true suffering Guei and Jian are forced to by their capitalist society, as encapsulated by the gang. Though they may be beat within and inch of their lives now, the true crime is that with no remorse or care, the one object that either truly needs to make a basic living in this world can be destroyed for no reason at all. Even as the rest of the gang leaves, the boy destroying the bike refuses to even react as Guei begs him to stop. One shot of the boy's head is in slow motion, possibly symbolizing the drastic change in character as Guei, finally having enough, takes a brick and knocks the boy unconscious. He has been forced to become violent because of the suffering this culture has thrust upon him. And as the camera surveys the broken bike, the unconscious boy and the bloodied Jian stumbling over himself-all from a distance, the camera returning to its original detachment from the people-we are left only to think how unnecessary all this violence has been, and how in this world, it's the only outcome possible for people like Jian and Guei.
Guei comes from the rural countryside to Beijing, one of China’s largest urban areas, in an attempt to find work and begin to earn a living. He is faced with a painful socio-economic divide between himself and the prep school boys, particularly Jian. The bicycle means different things to both Guei and Jian, but each of them believes that their meaning is most important. Jian even goes so far to wait with his friends at Guei’s place of work and chase him to a parking garage in order to get the bicycle back. There is one extreme long shot of the boys beating on Guei in said garage. The area is dark, full of shadow, signifying the woe of the situation. The camera then tilts to the left as Guei tries to get away. The boys follow him on their own bikes, which are a symbol of their wealth and comfortable position in society. Guei uses his bike to keep himself alive while the others make use of theirs to show off by doing tricks, attract women, steal, and harm others. Eventually the boys catch up to Guei and begin to beat him with their backpacks and kick him as he lays on the concrete; Guei isn’t even pictured in this shot, but all the other boys are seen at eye level. This asserts that the prep school kids think much less of him than they do themselves. To them, Guei is not even on the same level as they are. This scene has its value because it is the first real altercation between the upper middle class group and Guei, a lower class individual. He is alone, challenged by strangers who have more societal power than he does, experiencing the desolation of being a outsider.
ReplyDeleteIn "Beijing Bicycle", Wand Xiaoshuai uses a story of two boys' lives to show the effects of modernization on China. One perspective we see in the movie is a boy from a very low class trying to make a living, Guei. Another, Jian is a schoolboy who is looking for a "key" to society and an in with the girl he likes. Toward the end of the film, the boys have come to an agreement to share the bike that supplies work for Guei, and gets Jian the girl of his dreams. Modernization had a huge affect on the class systems and greatly separated old Chinese country villages from the city. Two boys from different classes are forced to share a bike with each other to prevent their equally misguided claims on each other situations. This compromise leaves one the bike for a week at a time, which seems like a good solution but turns into a bigger problem. This movie implicitly shows no one is truly satisfied with compromise, and how people see things so one sidedly that they forget about the others involved.
ReplyDeleteWang shows class difference by the costume. Guei wears baggy, tan, unkept clothing while Jian wears a formal school uniform all black. One thing that puts Jian above Guei is that the meeting place is in Jian's neighborhood forcing Guei to come meet him. This seems to make Guei inferior and makes him work harder to get a bike hat was originally his. Wang places the boys in the frame to the left and centered in the middle ground. This placement parallels to the fact that the boys have met each other half way with the agreement to share, and places them in a view to the audience that reveals the awkwardness, separation, and discomfort between Jian and Guei. Whenever the exchange occurs the boys are skeptical of the bike, checking to make sure nothing has been damaged, showing distrust. Not only do they not trust each other, they never speak, whether it is because Jian feels superior or Guei feels inferior, and especially the fact that they are from different parts of China and class systems. After every exchange whoever is left behind is center frame, medium long shot, with theirvhead low. This reveals to the audience their longing to own the bike for themselves, and how unsatisfied they are with the compromise. Wang uses fades after each exchange to show how long they have ben doing this, still without a work spoken between each other. As time progresses the shots move closer to a medium shot from the waist up, with Guei and Jian pretty much filling the frame. This shows how they are becoming more comfortable and friendly with each other. It is not as awkward and hard to share as it was in the beginning of the scene. Before this scene ends Jian asks Guei his name, and then introduces himself. This is the first verbal acknowledgement we see, which shows how into their own situation the boys have been. They only see what's going on from their point of view, and haven't really given each other a chance to open up or see it from the point of view. This is true for the whole movie. The characters usually react to situations based on their own knowledge, which is a natural reaction. This scene is very powerful in relation to the rest of the film because although they met under unfortunate circumstances, Jian and Guei put their differences aside to share something that they hold a necessity. This film is very realistic in the sense that it does not really resolve in a happy ending, but neither does life for everyone. Modernization is also seen as unifying the separating cultures in this film because it takes two teenagers from completely different backgrounds and forces them to communicate with each other no matter how unwilling.
Beijing Bicycle is a film about ultimately about the modernization of China. More specifically, this film portrays a story where people have to deal with change and adapting to a new way of live. It also shows the struggles that could come along with this. In this film, Guei is a country boy who moves to the city for a package delivery job. The company that he works for provides him with a bike that is necessary for him to do his job. This film is very similar to the Italian Neorealism film, “Bicycle Thieves” as it shows to lower class characters that run into a problem where the bikes that’s necessary for them to do their jobs are stolen. I think that the implied meaning of both of these films is that you’re not always in control and that things may not always go your way.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of this film, there is a scene where Guei and Jian get jumped in an alleyway. I chose this scene because it's one of the many recurrences of the theme of not being in control in this film. First of all, there is no music used in this scene and I think it helps the scene feel more realistic and immersive, allowing you to focus on what's happening to the characters without distraction and this is effective because it helps you emphasize with the characters better. This paired with the longer takes used introduces the audience to an uncomfortable situation that seems like it has no end and there's nothing we could do about it, adding to the theme of no control. Right after this scene, there is a very long shot of Guei walking across a city street. He is isolated from the fore and background and this could represent how Guei is on his own when it comes to transitioning into the new city life.
The interesting thing about the narrative of Beijing Bicycle is it combines China’s globalization with the roots of early-mid 1900’s culture. Wang Xiaoshuai combines these two periods to show China’s slow ascent to becoming a developed country through detailed and complex cityscapes along with underdeveloped and third-world like neighborhoods outside the hub of the city. This contrast is also depicted through the characters of Guei and Jian. While Guei gets a job at a courier company to support himself and his family in an honest fashion, Jian resorts to violence and stealing. Like the new-age China, Guei is more “developed,” while Jian loosely represents the old-age China.
ReplyDeleteIn the scene where Guei confronts Jian’s father and tells him Jian stole his bike, the difference is clear. Guei shows little emotion in this scene, as he is just there on professional business to get his bike so he can get back to work. However, Jian shows true emotion in this scene. Explicitly, we see anger. But as we watch we notice true sadness from Jian hidden behind rage. This bike is important to both of them, but as we watch and analyze further, we notice it’s for far different reasons.
In Wang Xiaoshuai’s film Beijing Bicycle, the stories of two boys, Guei and Jian, are used to highlight cultural changes amid a period of rapid modernization in China. Guei and Jian come from entirely different backgrounds, with Guei coming from the countryside for employment opportunities and Jian growing up in an middle class family. Guei views the city with wonder, determined to prove himself by earning ownership of the bicycle used for his delivery jobs. Jian, on the other hand, views the bicycle as a status symbol, knowing that possession of the bicycle will impress his friends and girlfriend. Although the bicycle means different things to both of the boys, they are both drawn into the growing desire for consumer goods in China as the economy. Guei believes that his life will be better in a modern high-rise city like Beijing, and Jian has been exposed to materialism throughout his childhood. However, the boys’ reliance on the bicycle ends up causing problems for them, exposing the negative aspects of life in a modern Chinese city.
ReplyDeleteIn one of the final scenes, Jian and Guei are chased through the labyrinthine alleys, or hutongs of the city by the friends of Jian’s rival Da Huan, who has just been attacked by Jian. Although Jian has grown up in the area and is familiar with the hutongs, he cannot escape the group of boys chasing after him at top speed on their mountain bikes. The traditional architecture of the houses in the hutongs contrasts sharply with the shiny excess of the bicycles being used to catch Jian and Guei. The editing in this scene is very quick, cutting between shots of Jian and Guei running, and shots of their pursuers riding rapidly through the winding hutongs. This conveys to the viewer the growing divide between traditional Chinese life and the modern rise of consumerism. At the end of the scene, Guei hits one of Da Huan’s friends over the head with a rock as he attempts to destroy the bicycle, in the exact same way that Jian had attacked Da Huan in the previous scene. I think that this action shows how Guei has been corrupted by the city’s emphasis on material possessions. In the next shot, he is seen walking away in a long shot, carrying the bicycle. Both Guei and the bike are visibly battered from the encounter. Ultimately, he achieved his goal of regaining ownership of the bicycle, but at a steep price.