An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)

Original title

大象席地而坐

Directed by

Hu Bo

Genre

drama film

Country

People's Republic of China

Runtime

3h 50m

Rated

U

Rating

7.7 of 10 from 235 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Four strangers in a small Chinese town each face a crisis that pushes them to leave. They all head to the same distant city to see a famous elephant that just stands still. The film follows their separate journeys over a single day.

slow-burnbleakmelancholicvisually lushcontemplativeunsettlingintensesparse

What happens

An Elephant Sitting Still (Chinese: 大象席地而坐; pinyin: Dà Xiàng Xídì Érzuò) is a 2018 Chinese drama film written, directed and edited by Hu Bo. The first and only feature film by the novelist-turned-director Hu, who died by suicide soon after finishing his film on 12 October 2017 at the age of 29, it is based on a story with the same title from his 2017 novel Huge Crack, about four people who travel to a northern Chinese city to see the eponymous elephant. It made its world premiere in the Forum section of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival. The film has won acclaim from established directors such as Béla Tarr, Wang Bing, Ang Lee, and Gus Van Sant. The film opened the 12th FIRST International Film Festival in Xining in late July 2018. It was released in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2018, and in the United States on March 8, 2019. Critics' reviews were highly positive. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• The Pluto Moment (2018)
• So Long, My Son (2019)
• The Enigma of Arrival (2018)
• Old Beast (2017)
• Red Flowers and Green Leaves (2018)
• Long Day's Journey into Night (2018)
• Yuan Shang (2017)
• Jinpa (2018)