(Ed. Note: This was originally published at The Matthew’s House Project.)
In the first scene of Unknown Pleasures, a teenager rides his motorcycle through the streets of Datong, the heart of a Chinese province as affected by its rapid economic development as it is by the Western influences that this commercial growth has enabled it to embrace. He rides through this strange mix of crumbling architecture and sparkling new buildings with a cigarette dangling from his lips like Jean-Paul Belmondo in more than a few scenes of Godard’s Breathless. At times, just like Belmondo’s character, the teenagers in Unknown Pleasures often tip their hands to the influence of mainstream American film on their self-perceptions.
A few times this happens through heavy-handed references to Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. As Tarantino’s film itself is such a pastiche of classic cinema references, Unknown Pleasures’references to it begin to make it seem like we are in a cultural echo chamber. There are nothing but a few points of narrative departure with these odd references resonating through the many broad empty spaces of the film. Just like many others in their town, Bin-Bin and Xiao Ji are two unemployed teenagers, their days split between the local recreation center and typical teenaged lusts. One day they meet Qiao Qiao, the racy dancing advertisement for Mongolian King Liquor, with whom Xiao Ji falls immediately in love. Qiao Qiao’s trademark wig is not her only resemblance to Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, so is her choice of music and a knack for the same sort intimidating naughtiness that only seems to really happen in the movies. Over lunch Xiao Ji tells her about a scene he saw in this movie (Pulp Fiction, believe it or not) in which a couple get up from lunch and go rob a bank on a whim. After a while, this idea starts to sound like a good one to Bin-Bin and Xiao Ji, who find themselves completely out of options for forging any sort of economic future.
Staged during the tense infiltration of Chinese airspace by an American military aircraft, the persecution of the Falun Gong sect, and the terrorist explosion of the local textile mill, the only bleak glimmer of global hope during the film is the nod toward Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. Beyond this, not only do these teenagers have no chance to get into the military, go to school, or get rehired at the jobs they have already lost, but Xiao Ji’s motorcycle keeps breaking down. The listlessness of the film becomes overbearing very soon; the director’s almost excruciating pacing forces us to watch this doomed story unfold with the fateful timing of hopelessness and poverty.
In a rare moment of escape from this wearying storyline, Qiao Qiao introduces us to the title of the film. It comes from the famous poem of a Taoist master about the dreams of a butterfly. If a man dreams of a butterfly, when he wakes how can he know that he himself is not actually the dream of a sleeping butterfly? This idle philosophy is easy to kick around in the comfort of Western economic stability, but it takes on a different tone in light of the uncertainties these teenagers are facing. For them the Unknown Pleasures are the ones you can take advantage of as soon as they arise, because if they pass you will certainly never see them again.
Shot on digital video in scenes that unfold in real time, Unknown Pleasures has a documentary feel that only makes its storyline more vividly hopeless. Its surprising end seems to imply that at least one of them might make it out of the terrible cycles they were destined for. But no matter what happens, one will leave the film with the distinct impression that this is the daily routine of millions of teenagers that survive both on the crumbs of their local economies and the bits of whatever Western culture makes it to their clubs and black markets.