It's been 10 years since Xiao Wu announced Jia Zhangke as one of Chinese cinema's most exciting new talents, introducing a ground-level view of China both streetwise and lyrical. Jia's open, observant cinema has always been driven—and occasionally undermined—by his unconcealed desire to speak on behalf of his generation as they contend with such headline issues as globalization, commodity culture, migrant labor, and alienation. As much as these preoccupations risk making Jia's films resemble newspaper articles on celluloid (The World being the prime example; it even had comics!), they are inseparable to making his work compelling as he perpetually approaches the problem of how to make these issues come alive cinematically. Useless, the second part of a planned trilogy on Chinese artists (the first, Dong, followed a painter), focuses nominally on haute couture designer Ma Ke as she unveils a new fashion line, but expands in unexpected ways to become a haunting exploration on the many meanings and purposes of clothing in human life.