MIT Lecture Series Committee

March 10, 2015

Rated unrated
133 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

A Touch of Sin (2013)

FREE admission for students (with ID), $4 otherwise. Sponsored by the MIT CSSA!

A "brilliant exploration of violence and corruption in contemporary China" (Jon Frosch, "The Atlantic"), A Touch of Sin was inspired by four shocking (and true) events that forced the world's fastest growing economy into a period of self-examination. Written and directed by master filmmaker Jia Zhangke (The World, Still Life), "one of the best and most important directors in the world" (Richard Brody, "The New Yorker"), this daring, poetic and grand-scale film focuses on four characters, each living in different provinces, who are driven to violent ends. An angry miner, enraged by widespread corruption in his village, decides to take justice into his own hands. A rootless migrant discovers the infinite possibilities of owning a firearm. A young receptionist, who dates a married man and works at a local sauna, is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. And a young factory worker goes from one discouraging job to the next, only to face increasingly degrading circumstances. [www.rottentomatoes.com]

In two decades of moviemaking, China's Jia Zhangke has examined the damage of his country's explosive growth with a poetic sense of outrage. With his latest effort, the implied violence bubbles over.
      -- Ty Burr, Boston Globe. Read this review.