표류하는 개인들의 사회 ― 자장커의 『천주정』에 대한 한 독법

Abstract

This paper explores social violence that is rampant in a materialist China by reading A Touch of Sin(天注定) by Jia Zhangke, one sixth generation filmmaker. The four episodes that this film contains are based on four real violent incidents that took place from 2000 to 2010 in China. The film focuses on describing how those incidents occurred over time rather than showing the results they brought about. In this way, complicated issues around the incidents, structural, institutional, cultural and social, are successfully identified. More interestingly, A Touch of Sin adds a new perspective of looking at the issues by reinterpreting those incidents in a martial art style(武侠). All the problems that the globe is currently facing, such as economic polarization, a pervading mood of lethargy, the instability caused by massive displacement, hatred, loss of direction, financial capitalism being globalized, and so on, get refracted, vivid, and fixed in the unique context of China. The four main characters of the four episodes of the film, after failing to keep track of social changes since the Chinese economic reform, pursue extremist measures which disclose the reality in China since the reform. In detail, each character represents: 1) the economic polarization and lethargy caused by the household contract responsibility system(家庭联产承包责任制) which is still far from perfect, 2) loss of identity and a confusion in values due to the massive domestic displacement, 3) a new theory of success which sees possessing women as a measure of success (which means the regression or destruction of gender norms), and 4) the structural and extremist violence produced by the cartel of the central government, the local governments, and the global capitalism which takes it as natural to isolate and disregard the migrant workers.