Worker, peasant, soldier … middle class? Class figures in Jia Zhangke’s 24 City

This article analyses the Maoist-class figures in Jia Zhangke’s 24 City (2008) and compares them with those found in Maoist-era visual culture. It examines how the films record the destruction and redevelopment of the social order, and the ways that the Maoist figures in the film have been made wretched or have disappeared. It argues, however, that the echo of their importance still remains, since the middleclass figures that appear in the film fuse previous Maoist elements with the contemporary success of economic reforms. They thus serve as a symbolic solution that combines the Maoist past with the Reform era present, therefore evoking the past to serve the present and the anticipated future.