What Exactly is a Chinese Film?
In the past, when Zhang Yimou was still controversial, films focusing on the sordid and the tu (earthy) such as Red Sorghum (Hong Gaoliang) sparked substantial foreign curiosity – it earned the 1988 Golden Bear as well as various Oscar nominations including one for Best Foreign Language Film. Aside from so-called Fifth Generation-ers such as Zhang and Chen Kaige, Sixth Generation directors have also garnered international reputations -- one good example being Lou Ye, whose Suzhou River (Suzhou He), starring Zhou Xun and Jia Hongsheng, although failing to bring home a Golden Bear, was well received abroad.
Competing as one of only two Chinese films for the Prix un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes festival (the other is Diao Yinan's Night Train), Blind Mountain (Mang Shan) by director Li Yang will hit Hong Kong cinemas this Thursday. Blind Mountain is a tale of forced sex slavery and child-bearing in the countryside – reason enough why we won’t see a mainstream release. Its predecessor, Blind Shaft (Mang Jing), won at least twelve awards, including the 2003 Berlin Festival Silver Bear. But its not only Chinese films directed by Chinese directors that are collecting awards on the international film circuit.
In the meantime, Conrad Clark, a 28-year-old graduate of the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) in London, also premiered his debut film Soul Carriage (Ling Che) (pictured above) in September at the San Sebastian Film Festival. A film that explores the riches of the Chinese physical environment, but made by a Brit: Clark admits that it is a “British movie” and does not express what Chinese people think, but what he as a Brit thinks. Clark sculpted a British film out of a Chinese migrant worker’s story, creating a hybrid creature that peeks its head in wonderment at the Chinese earth. This creature has its own interpretation of fast-paced modernization in China and how it has transformed the Chinese environment.
Living on a construction site in Shanghai for two years, Clark found his main actors and his inspiration. Soul Carriage describes one migrant worker’s journey to bring the corpse of a fellow worker home to Zhejiang province. The main character, though, is not the mingong with the bed-hair, but the Chinese environment and it’s changing architecture – a force of modernization. A “road movie,” Soul Carriage portrays mixed emotions, expressing what the British director feels through his experience of modern China. For the film Conrad Clark won the Altadis New Director award for his debut film at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival.
Similarly laowai directed films include Derek Verbeek’s Melody Z, which also uses Chinese urban culture as material. With Western directors taking the initiative to film on-the-ground in China and about China, should we reconsider Chinese cinema and its possibilities? Lately a friend told me that he hadn’t seen a “Chinese film” for ages. But although I think he meant a film made by a person of Chinese origin, the definition of a “Chinese film” is becoming ever more elusive. Before too long, with the range of directors who are making films about China, making such a statement would require a lot more explaining.
Links and Sources:
Answers.com: Blind Mountain
Petites Lumieres: Melody Z
Economist (via Simon World): Everyone is in love with Chinese cinema. Except the Chinese
Danwei FM: Interview with director of Soul Carriage
Practical Productions: Soul Carriage trailer
San Sebastian International Film Festival: Soul Carriage (image)
Variety: "The Knot" is China's Oscar entry