Art College 1994

Art College 1994

It’s peculiarly funny that the title of this animated Chinese college dorm rom-com about young people and their greatest loves themselves has a year in it. This feature length cartoon could easily be set in some other time or place without losing much of its specificity or universality; swap out a Nirvana poster or a multi tiered tape deck stereo, and you’d still have an unsentimental but ultimately loving portrait of idealistic undergrads at the moment they start to realize how small they are in the world that awaits them after graduation.

Director/co-writer Liu Jian’s affection for his impulsive young characters adds a refreshing twist to the usual pre-graduation coming-of-age story’s concerns for life after college. It’s funny because it’s true, and not just to its young subjects’ ever-changing values: These art students (like most art students) take themselves too seriously, but also live in a beautiful oasis that encourages navel-gazing, which must look pretty indulgent to anyone else. Art College 1994 is unassumingly sweet because it’s about kids and their eternal quest for freedom and self-expression mostly inside their own navels.

Art College 1994 is a time capsule about that shimmering moment when you think you know exactly what you’re talking about even though you don’t know much at all. Liu (“Have a Nice Day”) shows an unusual patience with his characters, whose stories tend to meander more than they progress; there’s also some intrigue over who will go where after school and who’s dating whom, making fair weather partners of musical students Hao Lili (Zhuo Dongyu) and Gao Hong (Papi), and fine-arts majors Zhifei (Shaoxing) and Xiaojun (Dong Zijian), as well as a frequently rotated cast of supporting characters who receive and project their own ideas back at these four core protagonists.

Since his blinkered twentysomethings only think they know what they want, and then only on their own vaguely personal terms, Liu focuses more on his characters’ academic setting. Jokes about the art world and its young, impressionable supporters abound; some are funnier than others, though even that makes sense since most people in this movie don’t seem to have an outdoor voice.

A “manifesto” by a museum curator is met with blank stares “I know every word here, but I don’t understand a thing.” A puzzled student asks a well-traveled artist from Taiwan (the great filmmaker Jia Zhangke) a half-Daoist question “Is the moon more beautiful abroad?” and is immediately shut down by an embarrassed administrator: “Please don’t bring up things unrelated to today’s topic.” Art is burned for freedom and portfolio’s sake, and love affairs are made and broken with dizzying frequency. Wait, really? You’re engaged to him? You. Him. Now?

“Art College 1994” doesn’t so much gather momentum as it drifts along with its characters, obsessing over contextualizing details in both the movie’s depopulated sound design and mostly music-light score. Ambient noises stand out on this soundtrack given the “social realist” design that has become central to Liu’s now-signature visual style.

Human characters stutter across ostentatiously designed background screens crowded with eye-catching decorative details; it’s not naturalistic so much as stylized in a mannered way that feels true to the fact that this is a story about students who drink too much, think harder than they understand and justify their choices by quoting Fyodor Dostoevsky, James Joyce and Pablo Picasso at each other. They talk about “traditional art” versus how to make new art either by combining old media or maybe just burning it all down (“I’ve already come up with a title [for an exhibition]. ‘Flame of Ideas!’ ”).

The biting edge of “Art College 1994″’s humor also gets significantly dulled by its matter of fact poetry and arthouse-friendly toggling back and forth between impressionistic details; look at these ceiling rafters! Now join Yingjun in bed as he stares up at nothing.

The movie’s music cuts off midspace out; soon, we’ll join Yinjun again as he trudges around campus at night, hands in his pockets, headphones on and a chorus of crickets on the soundtrack. Then it’s off to the Casablanca Club and its marquee’s flickering purple and green flickering halogen bulbs, which crackle on the soundtrack like a bug zapper.

“Art College 1994” isn’t really nostalgic because it vividly recalls what it feels like to be young and only responsible for yourself, with no frame of reference but your own narrow, constantly fussed-over headspace. It’s a rare coming-of-age story that admits yes, life was beautiful when you were younger and more excited about your future if only because it happened to coincide with you being there but not always as its main subject.

Watch Art College 1994 For Free On Gomovies.