Mid-Afternoon Barks
| Mid-Afternoon Barks | |
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| Directed by | Zhang Yuedong |
| Produced by | Xiao Su |
| Written by | Zhang Yuedong |
| Starring | Zhang Yuedong |
| Music by | Xiao He |
| Cinematography | Dong Jingsong |
| Edited by |
Yu Xiaowei Zhang Yuedong |
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Release date
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Running time
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77 minutes |
| Country | China |
| Language | Mandarin |
Mid-Afternoon Barks (Chinese: 下午狗叫; pinyin: Xiàwǔ Gǒu Jiào) is a 2007 Chinese film directed by Zhang Yuedong. The film was the first directorial effort for Zhang, who was previously an established theater director in Beijing.
Mid-Afternoon Barks is a surrealist triptych of stories that take place in Beijing, all involving the installation of electrical poles.
The film shared the Dragons and Tigers Award at the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival with Fujian Blue by director Weng Shouming.
The first of three stories told in Mid-Afternoon Barks, "The Village and the Stranger", follows a herdsman (Zhang Yuedong) who has abandoned his flock for a village in the Beijing municipality. Taking residence with his roommate (Qieli Dunzhu), he is asked by his landlord (Gadi Qieli) to install an electric metal pole in the courtyard outside their apartment. It becomes increasingly difficult to determine, however, whether the request was part of a dream or not, or indeed if the herdsman is even in Beijing.
In the second tale, entitled "City, Wood, Repairman", three workmen (played by Han Dong, Chu Cheng, and Gouzi) in the city are installing poles but to no apparent purpose. A seemingly unrelated but parallel story between a repairman (Quan Ke) and a young man (the film's composer Xiao He) rounds out this part of the film.
In the final tale, "Watermelon and Farmer", a farmer (Xiao He, again), is constantly bothered by rude customers, children, and workmen, who make him move his cart in order to attach electrical wires to the film's ubiquitous poles.
For one critic, Mid-Afternoon Barks was "a distinctive debut that doesn't quite resemble any other Chinese pic out there," and a film that had an "absurdist perspective." A description of the film for its North American premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival suggested that the "unfinished" nature of the encounters that the characters go through are suggestive of a dream state, an observation echoed by critics.
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Wikipedia