Obviously I should now rewatch Unknown Pleasures, in which Xiao Wu reappears, but I didn’t love it the first time. He’s a good character, the oldest of a gang of thieves, prickly and annoying, avoided by family and friends, bad with women, finally arrested and publicly shamed.
Unlike Bresson who takes an interest in the tense procedural craft of his titular pickpocket (as well as the protagonists spiritual and existential crisis), Jia focuses almost entirely on the wandering weariness that comes with the knowledge that the only thing you’re good at is destined to alienate you from civilized society. My man just wanted to smoke, drink, play pool, and sing karaoke with a beautiful woman, and he gets ruthlessly humiliated and punished for it.
