Their plan fails, but also succeeds in the worst possible way. Meanwhile, Wei Bu’s classmate Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen) is involved in a tawdry relationship with a school administrator.

29-year-old filmmaker Hu Bo killed himself after finishing his debut, but the four-hour masterpiece he left behind will resonate for ages. It’s tempting to think of “An Elephant Sitting Still ...

Wei Bu would like his sort-of girlfriend (Wang Yuwen) to leave town with him—maybe to go find that meditating elephant—but she’s having an affair with the school’s married vice-principal ...

Stretching to nearly four hours, An Elephant Sitting Still is a film of almost unremitting bleakness, following the overlapping paths of a group of characters and their existence – “life” hardly seems ...

The four hour dazzler "An Elephant Sitting Still" is both the first and last feature from the late Chinese director Hu Bo.

From left, Wang Yuwen, left, Liu Congxi, Zhang Yu and Peng Yuchang, in “An Elephant Sitting Still.” Criterion Collection ...

Wei's only closeness is the unspoken crush he has for Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen), a girl at school with him who has her own adult-related problems, while an act of unplanned violence on his part sets in ...

Four main characters—a young, charismatic hoodlum (Zhang Yu); two students, each trapped in scandal (Peng Yuchang, Wang Yuwen); and a retiree pushed out of his home (Liu Congxi)—fight despair ...

Wei has a romantic interest in Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen), a female classmate, who is involved both with the gangster and with a teacher, leading to overlapping plots of blackmail and social-media ...

Back in the schoolyard, Wei Bu’s object of affection, Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen), has her own scandal via an affair with the married vice dean that’s been splashed across social media.

Their plan fails, but also succeeds in the worst possible way. Meanwhile, Wei Bu’s classmate Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen) is involved in a tawdry relationship with a school administrator.