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egister is a voice “from nowhere in particular.” By contrast, “to talk
from ‘somewhere’ is to be from ‘somewhere’; it is to belong” (Silverstein
1999: 112–113). In the spectrum of potential social mobility, Xiao Ji and
Bin Bin are cast between Qiao Qiao and Bin Bin’s girlfriend. The two male
protagonists experience a type of limbo: they are stuck in a detestable
birthplace, yet they resist the sense of belonging they could enjoy if they
used the local language; they are teased by the promise of upward mobility
that Putonghua affords, yet that language carries the taint of rootless,
nonlocatable subjectivity. The unemployed and disenchanted teenagers
drift between the erotic massage parlor, the pool hall, the disco, and the
private KTV bar, never escaping from their stagnant hometown. In the end,
after their abortive bank robbery, Xiao Ji flees on his motorcycle until it
sputters and stops; Bin Bin, having been arrested, is ordered by a policeman
to sing Richie Xianqi Ren’s pop song “Ren xiaoyao.” The talismanic
significance of the movie theme song lyric “Yingxiong mo wen chushen
tai danbo” (Don’t ask a hero how humble his origin is) resonates with the
small-town teenagers. The futility of struggle and resistance conveyed in
the film’s ending scenes recalls the mundane closing scene of Platform,
where Cui Mingliang is found dozing on a lazy afternoon, while his wife
and toddler play in front of a whistling kettle (fig. 14). The hometown,
a humble and isolated backwater, is the site of the local youths’ hopeless
rebellion—a place they want to escape but cannot.
Intellectuals’ Representation of the Subaltern in Recent
Underground Films in Local Languages
Jia Zhangke’s documentary filmmaking style, featuring local languages,
small-town settings, marginalized protagonists, nonprofessional actors,
long takes, and digital video (DV) shooting, set an agenda for independent
feature films in the new century. Recent movies in local languages deal
unsparingly with sensitive and controversial topics in contemporary China,
such as prostitution, unemployment, peasant migration, illegal mining,
188 • The Rhetoric of Local Languages
MCLC 18.2.indd 188
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