All, or Nothing at All

An inventive cinematic diptych about attraction and alienation in a vast Shanghai mall. Russian premiere as part of the contemporary programme of the Festival of Singular Films.

Suo You You Shang De Nian Qing Ren
2023, Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang

China
124 minutes, Mandarin with Russian subtitles

Starring: Yu An, Xiaoyi Chen, Yanqi Chen, Ruguang Wei

Two skyscrapers that dominate the Shanghai landscape contain the gigantic Global Harbor mall: floors of shopping and entertainment spaces, the artificial sheen of décor that clumsily imitates ancient Roman baths, endless escalators and millions of reflections. Hundreds of young men and women idly wander around clutching their smartphones. Among them is Yoyo, a dreamer with architectural ambitions, who persistently stalks the breakdancing instructor Lan Tian. Or is it Lan Tian who spies on Yoyo through his phone camera day after day while she works at the cosmetics shop?

Shot from All, or Nothing at All, 2023

The film’s conceit—with two halves presented in either order—is clever. The lasting emphasis shifts between experienced and digitally preserved memory in both versions.

— Nick Kouhi, Journey into Cinema

Shanghai-based Oscar Zhang’s first feature film, which has already been included on the programme of the prestigious New Directors / New Films Festival in New York, not only captures the multiple reflections of the glittering interiors of Global Harbor, but also experiments with them. The two parallel stories with the same actors harmonise with each other and then diverge—just like their characters.

The sequence of the action also changes: Zhang created two versions of the movie with the episodes in a different order. This formal ingenuity is complemented by numerous games with style: the movie camera is replaced by the lens of a smartphone, or even by a surveillance camera. At first glance, these are two stories of love, attraction and loneliness in the life of Generation Z, but a closer look reveals existential despair.

The screening will begin with a brief speech by the curator in Russian. If you require interpretation into English, please request it at least three days in advance by emailing international@ges-2.org.