Movie

Chang'an Boulevard

2012 · 613 min

A patient, hypnotic gaze at ordinary street life that rewards sustained attention with quiet revelations about a vast city.

Directed by: Ai Weiwei
Genres: Documentary

Overview: Shot in one-minute increments, Ai's video obsessively documents daily life along Chang'an Boulevard, a thriving road that bisects the capital city along its east-west axis. ("Chang'an" literally means "long peace.") Ai and his team of videographers stopped at 50-meter intervals to record each fixed shot. The result is an impassive yet revelatory videologue that charts the blood flow of Beijing through its supermodern heart to its impoverished extremities.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.

Directed by: Ai Weiwei
Genres: Documentary

In your watch list

How it feels

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Tone
Pacing: slow-burn, 1 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: class
power
work
isolation
politics
Places: big city
road trip
Era: contemporary
Audience: adult
Form: documentary
anthology
Content intensity: Gore none
Language none
Violence none
Sex none

All scales, 0 to 10

Scales, 0 to 10
Scale	Value	0 to 10
Action	0
Horror	0
Humour	1
Realism	10
Romance	0
Tension	2
Darkness	3
Complexity	6
Emotional weight	5

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Where to watch in the UK

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Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres: documentary
Directed by: Ai Weiwei
Runtime: 613 min
Country: China
Languages: Mandarin

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Chang'an Boulevard

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