Chinese films dodge censors to shine at Berlin film fest
BERLIN: A m oving Ch inese epic looking at the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, the onechild policy and forced abortion made it past censors to premiere at t he B erlin fi lm f estival Thursday de spite a w idening crackdown.
Di jiu tian chang ( So Long, My Son) b y W ang X iaoshuai, clocking in a t more th an thr ee hours, is a sw eeping a llegorical drama ab out t wo f amilies whose fa tes become i ntricately intertwined ac ross 3 0 y ears of dr amatic c hange in th eir country.
Its wo rld p remiere c omes just d ays a fter t wo Ch inese filmmakers — v eteran Z hang Yimou and D erek Kwok- cheung Tsang — had to withdraw their Berlinale entries, reportedly due to official disapproval.
Zhang’s Yi Miao Zhong ( One Second) is se t d uring the C ultural Rev olution, s till a h ighly s ensitive su bject i n China, while Tsang’s Better Days deals with delinquent youth.
Wang told reporters in Berlin after a w armly r eceived pr ess preview t hat he wa s “shocked” when he he ard h is c olleagues’ films had been pulled.
He said he did not know what they might have done to fall afoul of scr eeners b ut a cknowledged that in China, “everyone, when you make a film, faces difficulties and challenges”.
While his own film dealt with “sensitive, p ainful” i ssues i n modern Chinese memory, he said it got the dragon seal of approval to screen at the Berlinale because he h ad “followed t he r ules” s et out by censors.
“The more change you have in a so ciety, t he more c areful a nd meticulous y ou h ave to b e i n documenting it,” he said.
Wang, 5 2, i s b est k nown f or Beijing Bicycle an d Shanghai Dreams, which picked up a prize in Cannes in 2005.
He b elongs to t he so - called sixth gen eration of p ostTiananmen Chinese filmmakers working outside the state system and t ouring th e in ternational festival circuit.
So Long, My Son tr aces th e lives of a c ouple w hose s on drowns at a reservoir in a freak accident for wh ich, it l ater emerges, their best friends’ child bears some of the blame.
The g rieving pa rents a re unable t o h ave a nother c hild because the mother was rendered infertile by an abortion she was pressured to have under China’s former one- child policy.
They ad opt a s on but b ecome estranged f rom hi m w hen h e grows i nto a t eenager, s o when he r uns a way t he a bandoned parents set off from their seaside village for the city.
There t hey beco me overwhelmed b y t he t urbocapitalism of the place they once knew well, and the sudden wealth of their old friends. But they also are a ble t o b egin h ealing th eir long open wounds.
“After the Cultural Revolution ended, t here wa s t hat s aying ‘look f orward an d d on’t th ink about the past’. That was at the time about forgetting about it all and getting on with the economy and f reeing y ourself f rom ideology,” Wang said.
“Now we need to take a f resh look at that phrase. We need to keep lo oking a head but we d o need to t ake l essons f rom t he past.”
The Ch inese en tertainment sector b lossomed a st he government s ought t o fo ster home-grown fare and develop the industry as a global “soft power” asset.
But a push for more material approved by t he C ommunist party has had a chilling effect on some artists.
Despite e vidently sh arper restrictions, Ch inese c inema was having a vintage year at the Berlinale, Eu rope’s fi rst m ovie showcase of the year.
So Long, My Son emerged as a strong contender for the Golden Bear to p p rize, to b e a warded today by jury president Juliette Binoche.
It fa ces st rong c ompetition from Ondog, a d roll m editation on lo ve a nd w omen’s f reedom set o n t he Mongolian pl ains by Chinese director Wang Quan’an, who picked up the trophy in 2006 for his film Tuya’s Marriage.
Meanwhile, de spite sensitivities s urrounding t he Xinjiang region where Beijing is believed to have detained up to a million ethnic Uighur and other Muslim minorities, Wang Lina’s A First Farewell also screened at the Berlinale.
The touching film delves deep into th e d aily s truggles o f th e Uighurs, including scenes where parents a re b erated by Chinese teachers f or fa iling to en sure that their children pass Chinese language e xaminations, o r scenes where children are roped into help during harvests.
Wang sai d t he fi lm w as a “long poe m” p aying t ribute t o the r egion where sh e sp ent h er childhood.
Although W ang is e thnically Han Chinese, she grew up among Uighurs. S he d eclined t o talk about t he po litical b ackdrop o f her film at the festival.
After the Cultural Revolution ended, there was that saying ‘look forward and don’t think about the past’. That was at the time about forgetting about it all and getting on with the economy and freeing yourself from ideology. Now we need to take a fresh look at that phrase. Wang Xiaoshuai, producer and scriptwriter