Check Out Jia Zhangke's Short Film on Pollution for Greenpeace

Controversial filmmaker, Jia Zhangke, known for his films A Touch of Sin, Platform, and Unknown Pleasures has just developed a beautiful short for Greenpeace. The short film, titled Smog Journeys, follows all classes of Chinese people surviving the pollution of an industrialized China.

The film shows polluted everyday moments of life: children walking home from school wearing masks, young lovers kissing under a blanket of smog, and life continuing as normal through the hazy backdrop of modern China. With scenes of young kids in the hospital getting chest x-rays and breathing through oxygen masks, the spirit of the film is undeniably solemn but beautiful, like a seven minute Baraka or Koyaanisqatsi.

Though all of the people in the film are living out their daily lives, the film seeks to show that living in this kind of environment comes at a serious prices with all of the health risks associated with the constant breathing in of dangerous particle matter in the air.

Jia is a specialist in these kind of sad poetic images filled with anxiety and is considered by many as one of the most exciting and internationally respected filmmakers alive in China today. Though his content doesn’t always pass through the censors, this hasn’t stopped him from becoming unique and rare voice in China’s quickly developing film industry.

Photos: Quartz, bilbaoarte.org