antoine-roquentin:

i thought director jia zhang-ke used the pet shop boys’ song “go west” in his new film “mountains may depart” because it sounded a lot like the soviet anthem yet was commercial, making it a sort of comment on china’s transformation. but when i saw him in person today, he said that he used it because it was the most popular song in chinese discos in 1999 and any time it came on you had to do the wildest dance moves you could with whoever was beside you at the time.