The Economist 20161001 ed79b8

34 China The Economist October 1st 2016
Banyan
The eyes have it
It is not easy to capture China’s contradictions on film. But it is possible
ABOUT 30 years ago, Er Housheng, a folk singer from Inner
Mongolia, slept with another man’s wife. In revenge, the outraged
husband and his brothers ambushed him and gouged out
his eyes. At first the singer wanted to die. Then he turned his
trauma into a hit song. Now in his 50s, he still performs, travelling
from stage to stage across the Mongolian grasslands, counting
with his fingers the 100-yuan bills he earns.
MrEr’slife and music is depicted in “Cut Out the Eyes”, a documentary
by Xu Tong which was screened in September at a film
festival in Hong Kong. The film, like its protagonist, has led an itinerant
life. It was scheduled to appear as one of 31 documentaries
at the Beijing Independent Film Festival in 2014. But the event became
a high-profile victim of China’s new climate of censorship.
The authorities cut electricity to the venue, hired goons to block
the path of attendees and briefly detained the festival’s organisers,
who had to cancel the event. Independentdocumentaries are
one way a country as complex and compelling as China can see
itself. But the government seems increasingly determined to
gouge out those eyes.
No vulgarity, please, this is China
To make an independent film in China, film-makers must apply
for what is sometimes called a “dragon” licence, named after the
logo ofthe Film Bureau ofthe State Administration ofRadio, Film
and Television. What the Communist Party expects from China’s
artists was laid out by Xi Jinping, China’s president, party leader
and chief critic, in 2014. He expressed disapproval of nakedly
commercial works that “blindly chase…vulgar interests”, an accusation
that cannot be levelled at the loss-making documentaries
that fill most festival schedules. He also warned about art in
which “good and evil cannot be distinguished…and the dark
side of society is over-emphasised”. That sounds like many of
Banyan’s favourite films.
Mr Xi’s tastes have left space in China for lots of documentariesthatconform
to whatTammyCheungofVisible Record (the organiser
of Hong Kong’s recent film festival) calls “TV style”. These
are mostly less than an hour long, with clunky voice-overs and
staged interviews. More challengingdocumentaries find an audience
outside the Chinese mainland—gracing festivals in Hong
Kongand abroad and appearingon public television channels. At
home they remain obscure, shown only at low-key events, often
in academic settings. To screen such films in China now requires
greater caution than a secret love affair, as one Chinese director
put it to Shelly Kraicer, a critic in New York. “It’s almost as ifwe’ve
already gone to sleep with other men’s wives.”
But censorship has not stopped documentarians making their
films, any more than Mr Er’s attackers stopped his songwriting.
(Even the closure of the Beijing festival was turned into a film in
its own right.) And despite the obstacles, documentary-making in
China still has a number of things going for it. To start with the
most obvious: everyone now has a smartphone or camera. One
of the most memorable films of recent years is “Disorder”, an artful
weaving together of artless footage of Chinese cities on the
boil. After the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, amateur footage of
death, destruction and despair was sold on DVDs to visiting disaster
tourists. The grisly images escaped official censorship—as
well as any standards ofdecency or taste.
China also has no shortage of drama to document. The Sichuan
earthquake inspired Du Haibin’s well-received film “1428”
(named after the time the disaster struck) as well as films like
“Shangshu Seminary”, which appeared at the Hong Kong festival.
The seismic movements in China’s economy have also inspired
memorable work. “Last Train Home”, a film launched in
2009 by Lixin Fan, followed a family of factory workers back to
their native village for the Chinese new year. The multitude of
migrants fighting to board trains allowed an intimate tale to double
as an economic epic. A similar magic is at workin the opening
eight-minute tracking shot in “Manufactured Landscapes”, a film
released in 2006 by a Canadian, Jennifer Baichwal. The camera
takes the audience past row after row of assembly lines in a factory
that makes coffeemakers and irons (for clothes, not for
whacking golf balls). What begins as a mundane shot becomes
mesmerising as minutes go by and the factory floor rolls on.
Sometimes it is not necessary to emphasise the dark side of
society. It emphasises itself. In his latest film, “A Young Patriot”,
MrDu turns away from migrants, vagabonds and disastervictims
to focus instead on a fierce nationalist, Zhao Changtong. MrZhao,
who shares a birthday with Mao, waves a red flag and shouts
anti-Japanese slogans in the streets ofhis picturesque hometown
of Pingyao in Shanxi province. He hopes to become a propaganda
photographer for the army—the kind of documentarian
of whom Mr Xi would no doubt approve. His gratitude to his
country is deeply felt and finely observed. When he was young,
his TV antenna hung from a poplar tree, he points out. Now he
watches television with a remote control, cosy on his sofa.
Then things change. Over the next three years, Mr Zhao enters
university, joins the student union propaganda unit, finds a girlfriend
and gradually loses his idealism. He is charmed by the simply
dressed Japanese guests, who carry their own luggage at the
hotel where he works briefly as a doorman. He is confused by the
downfall in 2012 of Bo Xilai, a charismatic, Mao-loving party
chief in Chongqing, a south-western region. During 15 days as a
volunteer teacher in a remote, mountain village, he complains
that party-picked legislators are all “fucking CEOs” and political
mobilisation is “brainwashing”. He still has enough patriotic feeling
to raise a red flag outside the one-room school and teach his
pupils the national anthem. But their commitment, like his, wavers.
As the lesson proceeds, the camera is distracted by a cock
fight. Disillusionment is, in some ways, as powerful as dissent. 7