| Films: a new approach to integration |
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| Features | |
| Thursday, 17 June 2010 | |
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It is of no great surprise that very few people, even in China, are familiar with the characteristics of the rapidly changing country’s new generation independent films. Because even those who came to the four day festival last month have found it impossible to sum up simply what this unprecedented genre has to offer. Funny, tragic, melancholic, baffling, heart-wrecking, thought-provoking, daunting and daring are all undeniable elements, yet the society that inspired these diverse films has lend them unity.
Held in Cinephilia West, a lively and elegantly decorated cinema in Notting Hill, the festival attracted a dynamic and international audience, particularly youth who identified much with these avant-garde films.
Focusing on a different category each night, including documentary, animation, narrative and experimental, the 27 films took their audience on a unique tour through many defining aspects of the real contemporary China. Ideas and questions filled the heated post-screening discussions every night – lasting to almost midnight.
There must be something unique that has sparked the imagination of London’s film-lovers, but to what extent can such interest influence the West’s perception towards China?
Chinese politics: what is considered sensitive?
China’s censorship is infamous. Almost everything and anything can be classified as sensitive. But the other side of the story is that an expectation of sensitive material can turn light entertainment politically dangerous. The experimental film National Anthem, which featured deaf and dumb students collectively singing the Chinese national anthem, was interpreted by a Chinese lady as political. Her argument was that after the instructor leading the singing was gone, the straight rows that students stood in started to disperse, showing that individuals do not want to be controlled by authority. Although many believed her to be reading too much into the scenario, a few minutes into the discussion several people started agreeing with her and another few minutes later the political aspect was excitedly “discovered” by a whole crowd. Indeed one would never fail to discover politically sensitive details if one try hard enough.
Condolences, a narrative filmed in a documentary style, stages the scene of an old woman being comforted by an entire village for losing a son and husband in an accident. The local authority, villagers and the media visited her in perfectly standard procedure. But the familiar is made strange by the film’s 19 minute single long shot observing the party with the mourning woman in the centre of the screen facing away. Some Chinese viewers even admitted of their embarrassment when witnessing such typical Chinese symbolic gestures being shown to a western audience, but admitted that they too would have done the same in such a situation to fulfil society’s expectations.
The film was seen as political because of the viewers’ strange discomfort, but to be fair, no one has done wrong - even the media that persisted in wringing information out of the old woman is blameless. The audience debated about what the filmmaker was trying to criticise but failed to persuade each other. Interestingly, this lively discussion seemed to have been dominated by a predominately Chinese crowd – after all, local government corruption has never been one of the West’s biggest criticisms for China.
The documentaries have also taken the political sensitivity traditionally expected of the genre to a new level. The 7th Medical Ward painted a cheerful and humorous but also saddening scene portraying the lives of the homeless. Each character’s unique personality penetrated through the film and occupied the foreground of the story, leaving the social issue of homelessness to be temporarily set aside but never quite forgotten.
Scrape, made by a young university student, examined the problem of illegal temporary stores and the harsh circumstances which their owners face. More importantly, it presented the process of her investigative journalism and reflected the corrupt bureaucracy arising from China’s recent rapid economic growth. Her conversations with various figures of authority were more humorous than alarming, and even the British audience did not fail to notice this. She provided a personal angle and distance to a commonly known issue, provoking viewers to rethink about the values and assumptions that the Chinese society is embedded with.
 Interpretation and communication: the west and the east
Films are essentially made to communicate messages, but to what extent are the original messages preserved when films presenting issues at the heart of China are screened in the UK? After watching the selection of animations, a British man roughly divided them into melancholic and joyful animations. Ms Red, a film about the life of a Cultural Revolution activist was unsurprisingly grouped with the melancholic, but it seemed to me that many Chinese would disagree. True, the Cultural Revolution is not a proud part of our history, but having been exposed to so much serious literature that condemns the movement, the naive, exaggerated and graphically striking Ms Red is almost mocking the serious literature written in hatred of this period of history. Its biggest strength is a unique use of humour, which has significantly lightened up the Ms Red’s tragedy, and enabled a Chinese audience to observe the sensitive Cultural Revolution more objectively.
On the other hand, Give & Take, which tells a lonely mud man who took bits of himself to form a woman but was later eaten by her, fell into his category of joyful films. Without the Chinese history as background, it was easy to dismiss this film as having less depth. But being more serious about relationships generally, many Chinese would not have appreciated the selfishness presented through the slightly dark humour.
National Anthem received further debates along the cultural lines. While a British businessman who has worked in Asia extensively praised the Chinese for their collectivism as reflected in the straight lines the students stood in, several Chinese disagreed, saying that the new generation is just as individualistic. Another commented on the lines as a perfect tool to teach western children about discipline – very true, although I’m not sure how helpful such interpretation would be to the initial message of the film.
What is Chinese about these films?
In my chat with Tianqi before the festival, she told me that western investors have an expectation for Chinese films to be “Chinese”, which sets limitations for filmmakers to follow. Having observed the audience closely, I do admit the strongly exotic films did attract the most attention. However, it also seemed that even films that did not consciously try to make a statement about the Chinese society are not completely devoid of “Chinese” elements.
Me, a one minute 34 seconds experimental film where the screen alternates rapidly between many different international faces is the creation of a filmmaker whose willingness to question identity is surely influenced by China’s rapid changes. Tremble, an equally short film that considers universal destruction by showing objects as shaking violently, gains effectiveness and gravity by including in its selection of objects traditional Chinese architectures, such as the Forbidden City. Even the Taiwan cartoon The Little Sun, which many found childish, reflects domestic details of contemporary Chinese families and mentality. Thus, we must broaden our understanding of Chineseness to fully appreciate these films.
The future for China’s “underground” films
Because China’s film industry was historically nationalised, independent films are called “underground”. But in recent years, many cities have held their own independent film festivals, publicly screening films that are supposed to be secret. At the same time, a large number of Chinese independent films have won international awards and are screened at international festivals on large scales.
However, the Chinese independent film industry is still young and full of uncertainties. Independent short films are still often the means of filmmakers to showcase their talent and hence gain commission for more standard films. Internationally, there still is not the capacity or interest to mass circulate independent films.
But the level of discussion generated at this festival makes me hopeful about the power of the film industry to encourage integration between China and the West. The directness of films as a medium of communication will be very useful in the near future to deconstruct Western myths about China and allow Chinese to express themselves on the world stage.
Cecily Liu |
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