The World

A film set in a theme park in Beijing. World Park holds scale copies of the world's famous structures: the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids, the Manhattan skyline. Visitors are told: see the world without a passport. Tao works here as a dancer. Her boyfriend Taisheng is a security guard in the same park. Both came from other cities and live in the dormitories behind it. The idea is that contrast: the people working inside a model of the world cannot go anywhere. Nobody has a passport, nobody gets leave, and most have not seen their families for years. The narrative builds no large event. Fellow villagers working on building sites, a dancer who arrives from Russia, text messages and small betrayals. There are animated passages: when the characters text, the image turns briefly into a cartoon. It is the first film in which the director used that device. Zhao Tao plays Tao and Chen Taisheng plays Taisheng. Jia Zhangke directed; it was the first film he made with official permission. A strong example for anyone who likes Chinese cinema and films about social change. For a viewer expecting pace, it is slow and the plot is thin.