Transformation and Alienation on Glocal Landscape in Jia Zhangke’s The World

Abstract

This essay studies the representation of the formation and influence of the glocal landscape in Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s film The World (2004) in the light of Roland Robertson’s theory of glocalization, a process of simultaneous interpenetration between the global and the local. Through a close reading of the film, I argue that both local and global forces shape and influence the glocal landscape, a site which creates both new identities and alienation among its residents. Analyzing three examples of glocal landscape in the film— a Chinese designer Qun’s family factory, The Beijing Railway Station, and The Beijing World Park, I contend that the protagonist’s social mobility is closely associated with his or her linguistic ability. Moreover, I transplant Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry in the colonial context to the postsocialist Chinese society to demonstrate the significance of mimicry in the local’s contestation against the encroaching force of the global. Finally, I examine the director’s filmmaking history and the film’s style, techniques, production, distribution, and circulation in China and overseas, and contend that the confrontation and conciliation between the postsocialist Chinese regime and global capitalism create a glocal landscape for the emergence of sophisticated Chinese artists.