Gang member Yu Cheng wakes up in a run-down suburb of Shijiazhuang, an industrial and administrative city of 11 million in Northern China. He tells the woman in bed with him about a zoo elephant in the Inner Mongolia border town of Manzhouli, which, he has heard, will not move no matter how much it is prodded or beaten. The woman’s husband, who is also Yu’s best friend, returns. After the inevitable row that ensues, he kills himself off-screen.
In another non-descript apartment, junior high school student Wei Bu is berated by his father before going to school. At school, the vice-dean tells him the school is closing and he expects to move to a better one in a better neighbourhood, but the schoolchildren will be stuck in an even worse school and have no future. Wei’s best friend, Li Kai, has been accused of stealing the school bully’s mobile phone. To defend Li, Wei gets into a fight with the bully and kicks him down a flight of stairs, putting him in hospital on life support. The bully is Yu Shuai, the younger brother of Yu Cheng. Wei realizes he is in danger.
Wei tells Huang Ling from his high school that he has heard the rumour about the elephant and wants to go to Manzhouli. Later, he trails her to a bakery, where he sees her meet the vice-dean, and realizes they are having an affair. She discovers that a video of her having sex with the vice-dean is spreading online. When the vice-dean and his wife visit Huang Ling’s mother, Huang Ling attacks them with a baseball bat.
Wei’s elderly neighbour Wang Jin is under pressure from his son to move into a care home. When he takes his little dog for a walk, it is set upon and killed by a wealthy neighbour’s dog that is running wild. When Wang confronts the neighbours, they attack him. Wei discovers that Li Kai really did steal Yu Shuai’s phone, partly because it had the video of Huang Ling and the vice-dean on it. Yu Cheng comes after Wei. Li arrives with a gun and wounds Yu. But Wei does not forgive Li, and Li shoots himself.
At the station, Wei meets up with Huang and his neighbour, Wang, and they all leave on a bus, headed for Manzhouli. The bus breaks down after dark and they disembark. An elephant is heard trumpeting on the soundtrack. Wei, Huang, and Wang have sought some way out of their dead-end lives in their dead-end town, and it seems the elephant has finally reacted.
The tragic combination of abusive relationships, violence, neglect and alienation in the film itself was amplified by the story surrounding its production. Hu Bo’s personal tragedy eclipsed the ending of the film, which hinted at the possibility of escape. In early 2017, he was taken under the wing of Hungarian veteran slow cinema auteur Béla Tarr and Taiwanese film editor Liao Qingsong. He developed great hope for his own vision of An Elephant Sitting Still, which he had been working on for several months. His two books of fiction were published in Taiwan to critical acclaim. His talent had also been recognized by Chinese filmmakers, and An Elephant Sitting Still was being produced by the Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai and his wife Liu Xuan through their company, Dongchun Films. However, Wang and Liu rejected Hu’s four-hour cut and insisted the film be brought down to a releasable two hours. A struggle for control ensued. On 12 October 2017, Hu Bo hanged himself in the stairwell of his Beijing apartment building. The news whipped up an internet storm and Wang became the target for numerous recriminations. He and Liu removed themselves from the credits of the film and relinquished the rights to Hu’s family, who then released the film through the festival circuit.
From beginning to end, An Elephant Sitting Still is a journey into the world of deep depression. Characters have lines of dialogue like “The world is a wasteland”; “My life is a dumpster”; “Garbage keeps piling up” and – before committing suicide – “The world is just disgusting.” Clearly, Hu Bo was a troubled man long before his dispute with Wang and Liu. Taken not only as a text but also as an event, An Elephant Sitting Still opens up questions about recognition of mental illness in China, the cultural understanding of suicide, connections between mental illness and suicide social and cultural circumstances, and the ethics of care. The circumstances surrounding the film indicate that this is much more than just an issue for the socially deprived, but extends into many other areas, including the supposedly privileged and exceptional space of art cinema.
Chris Berry (King's College London)
As the synopsis of An Elephant Sitting Still indicates, the film is full of potentially dramatic moments. It includes two suicides, one dog killing another, the revelation of a sex scandal involving a teacher and a pupil, and a catalogue of violence ranging from kicking someone down a flight of stairs to a beating with a baseball bat and eventually a shooting. Yet, Hu’s film eschews the temptation to engage in sensationalism and melodrama. Instead, he develops a completely different cinematic language that puts An Elephant Sitting Still firmly in the so-called “slow cinema” movement. From the perspective of the Medical Humanities, Hu’s deployment of the aesthetics of slow cinema is significant for its ability to induce an affective experience of the depressed and alienated psychology of many of the characters in the film.
Slow cinema, like slow cooking and other elements of the slow movement in general, is a reaction against the increasingly frenetic pace of contemporary life, which it regards as unhealthy. In the case of cinema, the reaction is against the frantic cutting pace and an obsession with action that has taken over commercial films, especially Hollywood blockbusters. The slow cinema movement began to be recognized around the beginning of this century. It is associated with long shots – keeping the camera at a distance from the action – and long takes – not cutting for as long as possible. Distention or even an absence of cause-and-effect logic characterize narrative. In Europe, Hungarian director Béla Tarr and Greek director Theo Angelopoulos are widely recognized as key directors, and in Asia, among many, perhaps Tsai Ming-Liang from Taiwan is most frequently cited.
In An Elephant Sitting Still, Hu Bo’s deployment of slow cinema aesthetics creates a flat tone that is the very opposite of drama. The suicides occur off-screen. When Wang Jin is desperately trying to kick away the large dog attacking his small dog, the camera ignores the fight and continues to stare calmly at Wang’s face. Even when Wei Bu kicks Yu Shuai down the stairs, Shuai is not in focus. Furthermore, there are frequent and long passages of “nothing happening” in terms of narrative development. These are often shot as long takes, but not as long shots. The camera often sticks close to characters as, for example, they walk through the nondescript and rundown neighbourhood, cutting them off from any connection with their surroundings or other people. Taken together, this cinematic design draws the audience close to the alienated and depressed feelings of the characters in their disconnection from everything around them. Just as they are neglected and mistreated by the powerful people in their lives – Wei Bu and Huang Ling’s parents, and Wang Jin’s wealthy neighbours with the big dog – so, too, their own ability to empathise with the sufferings of others is limited to their occasional expressions of despair and frustration, echoed by the elephant’s trumpeting. Cinematographer Ed Lachman comments in a piece edited for Film Insider by Daniel Eagan:
These images create an emotional state for viewers, but they’re also how we perceive those characters. The images are restrictive, so what’s partially seen and obscured becomes our view of how they are trying to see out. Also, think about the point of view of how he shoots things. A lot of times you’re not seeing the actual action, you’re seeing the reaction to the action. It’s only peripheral. Like the brother that falls down the stairs, you just see a glimpse of that. You’re on Wei instead. I think this helps us enter the world of the characters. You feel like you’re in their subjective view, as they experience the world around them.
Chris Berry (King's College London)
From a Medical Humanities perspective, and as an event as well as a text, An Elephant Sitting Still raises various issues for discussion.
1. Suicide in China
Both the film itself and the internet storm around An Elephant Sitting Still put a focus on suicide. Epidemiologically specially, China is a suicide success story. According to Jie Zhang, in the United States, suicide rates have grown from 10.5 per 100,000 in 1999 to 14.0 in 2017, marking a 33 per cent increase. But in China, the rates have fallen over the same period from 23.0 to 8.6, marking a 63% drop, and the country has gone from having one of the world’s highest to one of the world’s lowest suicide rates. Various reasons have been suggested, ranging from the general improvement in standards of living to enhanced surveillance in student dormitories. Historically, rural women were up to five times as likely to commit suicide as men. But the one child policy has made women more valued, and the availability of work in the city has provided escape routes from abusive family relationships.
How has suicide been regarded culturally in China, and how does its depiction in An Elephant Sitting Still relate to this history? Wu Fei notes that there no strong religious prohibitions on suicide in China. In his book based on a rural ethnographic study, Suicide and Justice: A Chinese Perspective, he also notes that whereas the great majority of suicides in the West are related to individual mental illness, research in China shows that the majority of people who commit suicide in China have no record of mental illness. Of course, one reason for this difference may be unwillingness to acknowledge mental illness in China. But Wu argues that his research indicates difficult power relationships are also crucial, with suicide the ultimate way of pushing back against impotence in the face of perceived injustice.
Both the characters who commit suicide in An Elephant Sitting Still can be understood to be acting as a form of protest when backed into a corner. Yu Cheng’s best friend finds him in bed with his wife, and neither of the lovers seem to think it is an issue. His suicide is the last available means of shaming them, although it does not appear to succeed. Similarly, when Wei does not believe Li Kai’s explanation of why he stole Yu Shuai’s phone, suspicion falls on him that he is responsible for circulating the video of Huang Ling and the vice-dean having sex, suicide is a means of protesting and reclaiming his dignity. A similar interpretation can be offered for Hu Bo’s own suicide when he was struggling to prevent his film being cut to half its intended length by Dongchun Films. Certainly, that is how it was understood on the Chinese internet – not so much as a cry of help from someone who was mentally ill, but more as a cry for justice. Furthermore, it worked. Opprobrium was heaped on Wang Xiaoshuai, who was forced to give up his rights to the film and lost a great deal of his reputation.
2. Mental Health in China
How is mental health approached in the People’s Republic today? One of the striking features of An Elephant Sitting Still is that we never see any reference to the overwhelming depression that is affecting everyone as an illness or something that requires mental health care, nor do we see any mental health treatment being provided.
In Western countries in the last few years, we have witnessed a huge upsurge in attention to mental health and increasing efforts to remove the stigma that has long surrounded it. Mental health is understood to encompass a vast range of conditions and not just those where one’s grip on reality is so loosened that it is impossible to function socially, and confinement is required. While similar changes may be happening in China, mental health care is not as available as in many other countries. Min Fang et. al. note that while there has been a huge increase in hospital provision for severe mental illness, “Common mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety, especially remain unaddressed. In China, like in most developing countries in the world, less than 20 % of people with mental disorders sought advice or treatments.”
Why do people so rarely seek advice for mental disorders? No doubt, this is a problem in most places, but research indicates that there is a particularly high level of stigma attached to mental health problem in “Asian” cultures in general. Chee Hong Ng notes that mental health problems may be frowned on as a personal failing in a culture that values self-control and as something that “tarnishes family honour.” Hu Bo’s history of difficulties with the education system and his literary output all indicate at least a possibility of struggles with depression long before the difficulties he encountered with An Elephant Sitting Still. But, in the online discussions I have come across so far, there is little discussion of this possibility.
3. Depression and Alienation
What is depression? The World Health Organisation acknowledges that “Depression results from a complex interaction of social, psychological, and biological factors” (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression). Given the dead-end social situation of the characters in the film and the heavy pressures on Hu Bo himself in his dealings with Dongchun Films, An Elephant Sitting Still certainly draws our attention to the social factors involved with depression.
Although it notes a wide variation in forms of the illness, the WHO also notes “a loss of pleasure or interest in activities” as a common symptom of depression. In the “Cinematography” section of this entry on An Elephant Sitting Still, I have noted how the refusal of engagement with dramatic events and the close camerawork that cuts the individual off from their surroundings communicate this flat and isolated feeling. Another term for this feeling is “alienation.” Indeed, one of the striking features of the film is not only how unengaged the characters are with their surroundings, but also how unengaged they are with each other. The lack of focus on Yu Shuai as he falls down the stairs suggests that what he has done barely registers with Wei Bu. The family relationships in the film are also alienated. Yu Cheng does not appear especially upset about Yu Shuai’s injury. Huang Ling and Wei Bu’s parents seem to regard them as nuisances. And Wang Jin’s son and daughter-in-law similarly treat him as an obstacle to the improvement of their lives.
Perhaps we can also think of what we see in the film and what Hu Bo himself experienced in Marx’s understanding of alienation as it manifests itself in the contemporary Chinese market economy. Writing about alienated or “estranged” labour in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx notes four types of alienation under capitalism. First the worker is alienated from the product of their labour – they do not determine or own what they make. Second, they are alienated from the act of production – because its meaning is reduced to wages, any engagement with the process itself is diminished. Third, workers are alienated from “species essence” or human nature. By this, Marx refers to the tendency of market economy labour to alienate workers from those around them and from general sociability. Finally, they are alienated from other workers – the promotion of competition among workers diminishes class consciousness and collectivity.
In An Elephant Sitting Still, the situation is even more extreme. Most of the characters appear to be alienated from work completely; it is difficult to discern what work any of the significant adult characters are engaged in. The schoolchildren are told that they have no futures by the vice-dean, who does have a defined job, but is also looking forward to leaving the area as soon as possible. In Marx’s admittedly rather romantic understanding, work holds out the possibility of social relations and meaningful existence, even if capitalism works against it. But without work at all, even this possibility is foreclosed upon. In a society that no longer operates on the command economy of assigning tasks or jobs to all, the world of An Elephant Sitting Still is the trash heap of those surplus to requirements. No wonder they are alienated.
4. Ethics and the Duty of Care in the Chinese Tradition and the Market Economy
The abandonment of the command economy model of assigning all adults tasks or jobs and providing schooling, housing and so on in return also had impacts on the medical system. Before the Reform era initiated by Deng Xiaoping, mental health care was provided on a community health basis. This model was replaced by an insurance-based model during the Reforms, which say mental health care largely provided through hospitals. This helps us to understand why we see no mental health treatment in An Elephant Sitting Still. Although the characters may display symptoms of depression, they can still function socially and are not candidates for hospitalization.
The retreat of the state in Chinese society has generated many debates about whether or not it constitutes neoliberalism. An associated issue generated by the events in An Elephant Sitting Still is duty of care versus individual responsibility. A neoliberal model treats society as composed of individuals, each of whom is responsible for themselves. In other words, it presupposes a high level of social alienation. In contrast, Confucianism understands society as composed of five key relationships (wulun): ruler and subject; father and son; elder brother and younger brother; husband and wife; and friend and friend. Only the final one is a peer-to-peer relationships. All the others are hierarchical, and while the junior partner owes allegiance to the senior, the senior or more powerful partner owes a duty of care to the junior or weaker partner. Ellen Zhang has explored the consequences of this for public health.
One way of understanding An Elephant Sitting Still as both text and event is to see the entire film as registering the suffering and meaninglessness that results from the withdrawal of a relational model that incorporates duty of care. The powerful in the film display no care for the weak or sense of responsibility for them, ranging from the parents to the vice-dean who exploits his position of power to sexually abuse Huang Ling, and the rich neighbours who do not control their dog and turn on Wang Jin after his dog is killed. As someone who was still functioning socially despite his long history of difficulties coping, it seems Hu Bo also received little care, and his suicide certainly caused debate about how he was treated by his producers Wang Xiaoshuai and Liu Xuan. Are the mental health consequences of Chinese neoliberalism the elephant in the room of the film?
5. What does the Elephant Mean?
Indeed, what does the elephant mean? In its off-screen silent and unmoveable enormity, never seen at all and never heard until the very end of the film, is it the film’s elephant in the room? And if so, what does it signify? Is it the generalized state of alienation and depression that is never directly addressed in the film? Or is it the exotic attraction on the border between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation that finally lifts three of the four main characters out of their despondent lethargy? The potential exit that they are still struggling to reach at the end of the film? And is its trumpeting a cry of despair or rebellion?
If it has any meaning at all, the elephant is a metaphor rather than a symbol. In other words, its meaning is not fixed and immediately recognizable, but more ambiguous and open-ended. Yet, all the potential meanings I can think of are related to the many issues of mental health in China that emanate from this film and the tragic story surrounding its production.
Chris Berry (King's College London)
Daniel Eagan, “‘It’s Inspirational that he Creates a Language to Tell a Story of His Own’: Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still Discussed by DPs Ed Lachman and Philippe Rousselot and Critic Adiana Prodeus,” Film Insider, 8 March 2019, https://filmmakermagazine.com/107089-its-inspirational-that-he-creates-a-language-to-tell-a-story-thats-his-own-hu-bos-an-elephant-sitting-still-discussed-by-dps-ed-lachman-and-philippe-rousselot-and-critic-adriana-prodeus/#.Yg4bGejP2Uk
Min Fang, Sydney X. Hu, and Brian J. Hall, “A Mental Health Workforce Crisis in China: A Pre-Existing Treatment Gap Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic Challenges,” Journal of Asian Psychiatry 54 (2020): 102265. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102265
Hu Qian (胡迁), 牛蛙 (The Bullfrog), Taipei: Kyushu Publishers (九州出版社), 2017.
Hu Qian (胡迁), 大裂 (Huge Crack), Taipei: Kyushu Publishers (九州出版社), 2017.
Song Hwee Lim, Tsai Ming-Liang and a Cinema of Slowness, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014.
Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1959. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Economic-Philosophic-Manuscripts-1844.pdf
Chee Hong Ng, “The Stigma of Mental Illness in Asian Cultures,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 31 (1997): 382-390. doi: 10.1.1.908.4881
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Ellen Zhang, “Community, the Common Good, and Public Healthcare—Confucianism and Its Relevance to Contemporary China,” Public Health Ethics 3, no.3 (2010); 259-266. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phq030
J.X. Zhang, “The Road of the Elephant,” New Left Review 131 (2021): 67-85.
https://newleftreview-org.libproxy.kcl.ac.uk/issues/ii131/articles/j-x-zhang-the-roar-of-the-elephant.pdf
Jie Zhang, “Suicide Rates Declined in China: The Social, Cultural and Economic Factors,” Archives of Preventative Medicine 5(1) (2020): 72-74 https://www.peertechzpublications.com/articles/APM-5-125.php, doi: 10.17352/apm.000025
