The absent subject of The World

ABSTRACT Shijie (The World) has responded well to social and political readings because a complex structure supports a most weighty subject, absence. The pre-credit and credit scenes anticipate a search for this elusive ‘subject’, meaning its guiding consciousness and its ultimate topic. A panoply of strategies helps Shijie spread horizontally from its theme park center and troubled lovers to encompass an immense geography and a range of social types. More striking are the film's vertical probes into the void of subjectivity. Two secondary characters, Anna and ‘Lil Sister’, who arrive in Beijing from more traditional situations uncovering The World's hollow core. The full spectacle of life as a theme park demands the moral annihilation of alternative ways of being. Global China offers paltry compensation for its lost souls.