Abstract: The Gold Lion Award Winning Film Still Life, reflects humanism solicitude to the inferior society with a realistic approach, which is a consistent theme in Jia Zhangke’s films; meanwhile, this film also adopts a surrealistic way to present itself. The paper analyzes the way the director combines these two seemingly opposite expressing techniques through an in-depth interpretation of film symbols, and analyzes the way the film reflects the events and people of China under great changes. The film is a record of these changes, while also an inquiry of the results of these changes.

Key words: Jia Zhangke, Still Life, Realism, Surrealism