Ray Pride

World Park is a Las Vegas-meets-Epcot theme park in the suburbs of Beijing, a real-life edition of the sort of place a latter-day Jacques Tati could spend multimillions replicating. Fake atop fake, with a scale-model Eiffel Tower rising above a scrunched down Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, a teeny Manhattan with the World Trade Center intact, it's also the site of the romantic doings of young Chinese in their twenties working in the attractions. Jia, the gifted, idiosyncratic director of "Platform" and "Unknown Pleasures," critiques the pitfalls of globalism but is also canny in capturing emotional crises in an evolving world. Whimsical, lyrical interludes where text-message exchanges erupt into fanciful Flash animation are among the innovative stylistic touches; the contemporary score is lovely as well. Please use the word "simulacrum" sparingly when discussing your friends; there are lives onscreen as well as more intellectual notions. 132m. Widescreen from HD video.

"The World" opens Friday at the Music Box.

(2005-07-26)

Also by Ray Pride

Bay's Day
Let us define how there could be such a creature as "a great Michael Bay movie."
(2005-07-21)

Tip of the Week
Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro's powerful, visceral, emotional, profane, heartening crowd-pleaser follows four rugby players from the U.S. Paralympics team
(2005-07-21)

Crash course
Vince Vaughn's tired before he starts to talk
(2005-07-19)

Tip of the Week
Somewhere, Jean-Pierre Melville is smiling
(2005-07-19)

Stuck in the midlist with you
(2005-07-05)

Tip of the Week
(2005-07-05)

Close encounters of the 9/11 kind
(2005-06-28)

Tip of the Week
(2005-06-28)

Being Samantha Stephens
(2005-06-24)

Guy goes to Heaven
(2005-06-24)

My parade, part 2
(2005-06-24)

Tip of the Week
(2005-06-22)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment