Yang Fudong, Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest

Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, Part II of V

Photograph: Courtesy of Asia Society, New York: Promised gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hal and Ruth Newman

Two years after its premiere at the Venice Biennale, Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest has arrived in the United States. This five-part film, shot in picturesque black and white, runs nearly five hours but rewards those willing to stick with it. It’s one of the most original works of art to come out of China in the past decade, with a ravishing beauty that transcends cultural theories.

The project is inspired in part by the fifth-century legend “The Seven Sages in a Bamboo Grove,” in which the eponymous group withdraws from the corruption of public life to explore Taoist philosophy and the glories of wine. Part I bears the closest relationship to the story introducing its troupe of Shanghai yuppies as tourists at Yellow Mountain, a landscape identified with traditional scroll painting. Part II is far more French New Wave, exploring the sexual intimacies of the five men and two women through voice-overs in the claustrophobic confines of an apartment complex. Parts III and IV transplant the team to the countryside and seaside, respectively, and meditate on their sense of alienation. Part V places the seven protagonists back in Shanghai, on rooftops surrounded by futuristic skyscrapers, and in the construction sites found all over this ever-growing metropolis.

The films play simultaneously here, instead of in succession as they did in Venice. I recommend watching Part I and Part V in their entirety, since these two sections best capture the conflicts and regrets of Yang’s generation of Chinese dreamers. The other films, while imaginative and haunting, are better savored in small doses.—Barbara Pollack

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