The Cinematography Of Nostalgic Utopia

Nostalgic Utopia means that the past has been idealized,which becomes one kind of spiritual power to realize a better future.It consists of two important concepts:Nostalgia and Utopia.And this paper takes it as a kind of utopia which highlights its dimension of nostalgia.So it's necessary to figure out the story and main characters of both nostalgia and utopia first so that we can make a proper definition of Nostalgic Utopia based on these.Actually,Nostalg:ic Utopia plays an important part as aesthetic modernity on reflecting and salvaging enlightenment modernity problems.It takes effects on the background of enlightenment modernity and focuses on its problems.Then Jia Zhangke's films may be the perfect match because he recorded his hometown Fenyang,a county of Shanxi province in China and its modernization progress by films.This paper will take Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Departs and other films as examples to figure out how it is expressed in these films which is the focus of this paper.By analysis,this paper finds out that the past image is clear while the future is vague in his films,moreover the sense of reflection on both the past and future are strong which means he is nostalgic but still stay alert about the negative effects of nostalgia.And criticizing and reflecting the current problems means expecting a better future to some extend.The last and the most important is that Nostalgic Utopia doesn't aim to build a blueprint Utopia of the past but takes nostalgia as a way to defend the reality problems and guide us to a different future.