Memory and remembering in film

What is it about?

In this article, I examine how the film 24 City (Jia Zhangke, 2008) commemorates a Chinese factory and its workers through combining memory, the act of remembering, and its recitation, thus creating ‘memories in performance’ that construct an emotional history of the worker class. I examine how both the real and fictional interviews in the film create the same emotional meaning through producing emotions that are ‘real’ regardless whether their source is real or fake, thus emphasizing that memory is not only about history and ‘fact,’ but also, more importantly, about the emotion it conveys.

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Why is it important?

It examines how film is not only an object that commemorates an event, but also offers a commemorative experience to the viewer.