The Destination Draws Near; The Elephant’s Call Is Heard

Despair, suffocation, escape. The elephant isn’t sitting because it refuses to stand, but because it can’t; if it could, it would flee too. Even a huge and powerful elephant has moments of helplessness. The small people trapped in Jingxing are likewise unable to escape this city that smothers hope.

Two thousand yuan a month in wages, apartments at eight thousand a square meter, vanity, betrayal—and a leap that slowly opens a four‑hour story. Who in this world lives free of troubles? From birth to the end, we struggle against futility. A child does a decent handspring, yet her mother pushes for more—no one can say exactly why. The old soldier Wang Jun, who spent a lifetime in uniform, is left with nothing but a dog’s life, sleeping on his own balcony; in his daughter and son‑in‑law’s eyes, even a dog’s life outranks his. Grandma Weibu dies alone, unnoticed. At the station, Wang Jun tells a young man: life is like this—you stand here and think it’s better over there, but don’t go; once you get there, it’s the same mess as here. We know life is a futile endeavor, and still we set out.

In a small city, circles are small and entangled—same workplace, same school, friends, relatives; everyone knows what your family does, what your father does, your mother does, what you did. Circles breed endless trouble. The outside circle is one thing; it’s the family conflicts that crush you—spouses betray, fathers and sons become enemies, mothers and daughters at odds. After a day of toil, home should offer some comfort, yet it becomes another battlefield.

There are no true “little people”; we just play different roles while facing the same hardships—the same despair and helplessness. With so many roles, everyone is forced to switch masks quickly between scenes. In society, Yu Cheng has his brotherhood—bold enough to sleep with a brother’s wife—yet at home he’s still cursed by his mother and kicked by his father. In his father’s eyes, Xiao Jun is a delinquent; in his grandmother’s, he’s a good grandson, and to his classmates, a loyal friend who stands up for others.

An Elephant Sitting Still leaves me so devastated that words fail; no rhetoric, however sharp, can match the film’s raw truth.

Director Hu Bo left us one film and then ended his life. It brings to mind the line: when a person dies, he still lives—at least his work lives on.

Published at: Sep 10, 2025 · Modified at: Sep 13, 2025