History, Cityscape and Spatial Stratification

This chapter presents cinematic Chongqing as a space of literal stratification of high and low spaces, with characters appropriating distinct urban spaces that correspond to their stratified social classes. Providing the geographical, historical and social background of changing cinematic images of the city over half a century, this chapter explains the reasons why the city has been continuously captured and represented as a mundane and vernacular place. This is explicitly shown in the black comedy Crazy Stone [Feng kuang de shitou] (Ning Hao, 2006), which displays Chongqing as a melting pot characterised by immigrants, dialects and the lack of cultural originality and moral values. This chapter then argues that cinematic Chongqing reflects the city’s power to create disorientation, anxiety and social discontent owing to an increasingly complicated and unevenly developed technocratic society where great changes of identity, subjectivity and social class are underway. The second analysis is of the psychological horror Curiosity Kills the Cat [Haoqi haisi mao] (Zhang Yibai, 2006), and it explores urban spaces pervaded by desire, infidelity and class stratification. In addition, tragic consequences ensue when film characters transgress such stratified spaces, which sheds light on the wide disparity between social classes in reality.