In thirteen static shots, Distant covers the geographical and (peri)urban reality of a large Chinese agglomeration. A succession of landscapes devoid of glory but not spectacle. Each shot builds its scene and reveals its duration an unusual micro-fiction. The tones vary, contradict or complement each other and, from the tragic to the absurd (humour sometimes occurs when we have stopped expecting it), the film measures the distances that now separate one human being from another, and humans from the objects surrounding them. What is even more disturbing in this Chinese world, seen here through the layout of public spaces, is the collection of tiny, intimate and fragile gestures that unconsciously resist any kind of disintegration. Yet, here, humanity is not seen through the prism of its alienated relationship with an environment that it has created. It seems more as if it had been… abandoned.
JB