Seen from a Western perspective

contemporary Chinese cinema seems to be characterized by two interrelated dimensions: a positive tendency to formal experimentation and a stimulating – and maybe symptomatic – obsession with issues related to time. The purpose of my paper is to investigate the relationship between these two features utilizing a comparative approach. Time as an aesthetic object pervades Chinese cinema across genres and atmospheres

from drama to comedy

from thriller to documentary. Despite the differences between these kinds of movies

the theme conceals a sort of common key

which can be used to interpret Chinese culture and tastes. I will attempt to provide the semiotic schemes for comprehending how time is quantitatively and qualitatively created in a corpus of movies

also comparing them to their ideal counterparts in Western cinematography in order to pinpoint the reciprocal formal specificities. Mountains May Depart ( 山河故人

Jia Zhangke 2015 ) splits itself in a sort of dialectic between past

present and future

and reflects on the trauma of separation; Black Coal

Thin Ice ( 白日焰火

Diao Yinan 2014 )combines the feel of noir movies with the materiality of time; A Touch of Sin ( 天注定

Jia Zhangke 2013 ) juxtaposes four different spacetimes

uniting them with a violence which is highly metaphorical

as happens

for example

in the postmodern splatter of Quentin Tarantino;Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing

2017 ) follows in a documentary frame the life of a woman affected by Alzheimer’s disease

with a slow rhythm which clashes with the frenzy of modern life

configuring two Ellipses and Amnesias. Poetics and Figures of Time in Contemporary Chinese Cinema times that interface by reflecting on the importance of memory. At the end of my paper the peculiarity of time in contemporary Chinese cinema will emerge

both from a stylistic and a symbolic point of view.