방 안의 코끼리와 만저우리의 코끼리— 영화 <大象席地而坐>가 그리는 중국의 오늘

Abstract

This study considered how An Elephant Sitting Still, a film directed by Hubo, established the narrative about China of today and human life, around the aesthetic of reproduction and discussed what suggestions such a narrative of An Elephant Sitting Still provides to us. An Elephant Sitting Still established the narrative with multi-views, post-frame sequences and traveling camera walking, which are some of atypical plot composition methods of film dramas. It, therefore, exposes daily violence occurring under the structural exclusion by national and social systems and the vicious cycle of tragedy and misery, experienced by Chinese grass roots alienated by laws and institutions for the community. Although characters appearing in An Elephant Sitting Still hope to be true members of families and the social community, they are thrown away and excluded, so they move toward the Manzhouli zoo, Topophilia. They viewed an elephant sitting in a cage as the subject who can take a minimal rest in the society. All characters feeling deprived anywhere desire to be constrained, like elephants in zoos, while recognizing such constraint as a mode of salvation. By using such a description, Hubo criticizes the Chinese reality. He also, however, describes the ‘small solidarity’ in which alienated characters approach others who are placed in a similar situation, in the journey together to find out elephants. We may feel that it is necessary to be conscious of a problem which has always existed in our ‘inside’, but of which we have been forgetful, and can take a glance at how to exist as ‘contemporaries’ in the era in which Homo Sacar is continued to be massively produced.