Director
A large room. On a scene a pile of hammers. 301 to be precise. A man enters, gloved handed. He grabs a hammer and breaks another with it. And so on until the whole but one has been destroyed. Here is the show: simple and tedious, slow and of long term. Easy to understand: it is all about work. Li Binyuan as a modern Sysyphus: obvious endeavor, paradoxical glory of this vain task, work returned on and against itself. Now another operation, as destructive, remains open: interpretation.
Scalper
In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves.
