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PSIFF 2011: AFTERSHOCK

Fang Deeng (Zhang Jingchu) in Aftershock

Long on melodrama, short on very impressive special effects, China's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Aftershock, offers a wallop of both.

The film opens with a pretty impressive scene of dragonflies flying through the air and out of town. They seem to know what is about to go down. A Chinese family watches in amazement as the dragonflies flee.

Once home in the city of Tageshan, Aftershock immediately establishes the family dynamic. The parents are hard working, simple Chinese folk just making it through the world. They have two children, twins. Fang Da (Li Chen) is a bit of weakling, letting his sister, Fang Deeng (Zhang Jingchu), fight his battles. A cooling fan is a luxury.

As the parents finish their business in the back of their truck, the ground begins to shake, shake and shake. It is the 1976 earthquake of Tangshan and for what seemed a good five minutes on screen, thousands and thousands of people are crushed under the weight of unstable buildings. Other things fall, streets crack, people jump out of windows only to be crushed by the building behind them. There is a crane coming undone. There is a pit in my stomach. Imagine the intense, loud, chaotic scene in Ron Howard's, oops, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center where the tower collapses on the firemen and magnify that by ten and you start to get the picture.

It is pretty gut wrenching, especially if you live in the city of Los Angeles where we anticipate the inevitable big one. It does not help that the film's sound shakes the theater walls.

When the rubble starts clearing, the mother, Li Yuanni (Xan Fan), has to make a "Sophie's Choice" between which buried child to choose to live. She picks one, but unbeknown the other hears her mother's choice. To compound the drama, the unpicked child survives unbeknown to the mother and other child.

Jumping over the next 32 years, until the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, each of the surviving members suffers in his or her post-traumatic vein. To keep the saga going, Aftershock incorporates a bombastic music score, multiple tropes of lost chances, and numerous crying scenes.

The highest grossing Chinese film in China's history, for well over two hours, director Xiaogang Feng's Aftershock offers up plenty of emotions. The problem is that the earthquake scene is so powerful the rest of the film incrementally becomes anticlimactic to the point one wishes it would speed up to its predictable conclusion.

(Aftershock screens Jan. 14, 10:30 a.m., Camelot Theatres. For more information: Aftershock)

A scene from The Dreams of Jinsha.

Colored children

By John Esther

The Dreams of Jinsha illustrates the rather childish tale of a young boy named Xiao Long (voice by Xu Gang) who travels back in time 3000 years to a mystical China filled with domesticated beasts, talking animals, ethereal spirits and a beautiful princess whose father's kingdom is threatened by an outside force and it will be up to the young, traveling boy from the future to save the day.

The most expensive animated film ever produced in China, the hand-drawn fantasy film has its moments of animated inspiration, but the story is an all-too similar one unlikely to bring any English-speaking children in America who will not appreciate the fine craftwork so much as be annoyed by having to read the English subtitles underneath. As far as adults go, animators may find it interesting for a technical/cultural comparison -- although it pales in comparison in many areas to domestic, Euro and Nippon animation -- but there is not much else here to summon most adults into theater seats.

In fact there are plenty of lulls in the story where the The Dreams of Jinsha runs scenes which do nothing to propel the story anywhere. Perhaps the animators felt a scene was just too expensive to produce to have it discarded to the edit room floor.

There is also a reactionary subtext throughout the film implying that once you learn a little history you will respect your elders. Whether that is a valid point elsewhere may be debatable -- there certainly is no real history here. But what do you expect from a country whose film industry requires approval from a gerontocracy?

Released this Friday in a futile attempt to garner Oscar recognition, The Dreams of Jinsha should soon be history here as well.

Wai (Terence Yin) in Fog.

ID Film Festival Opening Night Film

By Don Simpson

Wai (Terence Yin) remembers nothing at all; it seems he suffers from amnesia due to an unnamed and unexplained incident that occurred in the (presumably recent) past. Wai’s past is not even foggy or a faint blur, it has been completely purged from his memory banks. For Wai, history -- both personal and otherwise -- has been negated.

Wai finds himself residing with his mother (Camy Ting) and younger sister (Joman Chiang) -- both of whom he has no recollection of knowing -- in Hong Kong. He slowly ingratiates himself back into his circle of friends, knowing that he must rely on his family and friends (the people he once knew) to fill in the blanks of his past. Otherwise, Wai wanders across Hong Kong each day in a zombie-like trance, helplessly searching for answers for which he does not even know the questions.

In an attempt to numb the pain of forgetting, or at least ease himself back into the realm of the knowing, Wai over-indulges in alcohol and drugs. Wai learns by mimicry (as when he is struggles to set up a lighting unit while working at a photography studio), so we sense that Wai’s use of alcohol and drugs is at least partially a result of him aping his friends while also functioning as a surefire way to return back to his former (partying) self. That is, if that is who Wai really wants to be.

It seems Wai may never regain his memory and the bits and pieces that he is able to gather regarding his past are destined to only create more conflict and confusion. Fog, the feature film debut of director Kit Hui (Missing), does not provide many answers for its protagonist (or the audience). There are countless questions that remain deliberately unanswered, first and foremost: Why are his family and friends so blatantly hiding parts of his past from him?

A tranquil and minimalist meditation on memory and self, Fog takes place in 2007 during the 10th anniversary of the Hong Kong “handover” from the UK to China. The timing allows Wai to function as a metaphor for Hong Kong. Hui seems to be pontificating that Hong Kong has lost its identity and its sense of history. Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire in August 1842 (during the First Opium War); it was briefly occupied by Japan during World War II (1941-1945), then the British again maintained control through 1997 when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty. Shortly after the handover to China, Hong Kong suffered devastating economic blows from the Asian financial crisis and the H5N1 avian influenza. In 2007, Hong Kong is finally emerging from its fog and attempting to unearth its true identity.

As with Wai, the question remains: Should Hong Kong begin anew by reinventing itself or should it piece together enough of its checkered past to create a historical identity?

(Fog screens 7 p.m., tonight at Los Angeles' National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 N. Central Ave. For more information http://www.marginfilms.com/idff/2010/)

Scorned between two lovers: Li Jin (Zhou Tan) in Spring Fever.

Love plus one

By Don Simpson

Director Ye Lou is hardly a darling of the China's aging government. His debut feature, Weekend Lover (1994), was censored by the Chinese government; his Suzhou River (2000), filmed clandestinely on the streets of Shanghai, was banned in China yet won the Grand Prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival; his Summer Palace, which included explicit sex scenes and touched on the 1989 events surrounding Tienanmen Square, screened at Cannes in 2006 and resulted in Lou’s ban by the Chinese Film Bureau for five years.

But that did not stop him from making his latest film, Spring Fever. Filmed under the radar of the Chinese government in Nanjing, Lou circumvented the Bureau’s five-year filmmaking ban by registering the film as a Hong Kong-French co-production.

Considering the film's content it would not be a stretch of the imagination China's government would not approve of Spring Fever, either.

Wang Ping’s (Wei Wu) schoolteacher wife (Jiaqi Jiang) has hired Luo Haitao (Sicheng Chen) to track and photograph her wandering husband who is in the midst of an extra-marital relationship…with a man, Jiang Cheng (Hao Qin). When that love triangle shatters, Luo becomes Jiang’s rebound; but Luo also has a girlfriend, Li Jing (Zhou Tan), who works at a counterfeit textile factory. So, once again, Jiang finds himself sharing his man with a woman.

The multiple love “triangles” of Spring Fever lack their third side which means there is always a third wheel, and with a third wheel jealousy and animosity abound. (Critics have been quick to pounce on obvious analogies to Jules and Jim.) There lies the drama within Spring Fever. Jiang Chang has no interest in his partners’ “other women” and the ladies certainly have no interest in him.

The spring fever of the film’s title refers to the hormones (and feverish craziness) bubbling over within the characters. It is as if everyone in Spring Fever is an animal in heat. Just as the flowers are blooming, so do love affairs. The “drunken spring nights” will eventually end; the flowers must die and so must love.

Despite the images of sunshine and flowers that come to mind upon hearing the bright and cheery title, Spring Fever takes place primarily in the shadows and dark recesses of the night. Blackness engulfs the screen, as restrained splashes of fluorescent red and green hues render the actors’ faces barely identifiable (which may make it difficult for some Western audiences to follow the complex web of relationships). The furtive visual elements of the film are understandable because gays in China are destined to remain confined to the shadows since being homosexual is still classified as a mental illness.

Cinematically, Spring Fever appears illicit and clandestine using only existing light sources and handheld camerawork -- which also conveys a haphazard narrative in which a spy (in this case the audience) only knows where their subject is at the present and is unable to prepare for the subject’s next move.

Visually impressionistic and linguistically sparse yet poetic, Spring Fever is like a recollection of faint remnants of a dream. There are moments of clarity in which onscreen events appear clearly and unfold sensibly, but the rest is just a beautifully mysterious blur.

Beijing Taxi director Miao Wang.

Driven home

By Don Simpson

Born and raised in Beijing, Miao Wang moved to the United States in 1990. Now a filmmaker, Wang’s 2006 documentary short film, Yellow Ox Mountain, and her first feature, Beijing Taxi, are stories of what it means to be Chinese in the modern world told from the perspective of someone who is both and insider and outsider.

China is an enigma to most of the western world, and Wang’s goal is to humanize China and highlight the commonalities between Chinese people and the western world. On the surface, Beijing Taxi is a chronicle of the effects that the 2008 Olympic Games (and capitalism) had on working class Beijingers; but Beijing Taxi’s three subjects (Bai Jiwen, Wei Caixia and Zhou Yi) also reveal that the everyday working class struggles in China are no different than those in the western world.

I caught up with writer-director Miao Wang in Austin, Texas, during South by Southwest where Beijing Taxi screened thrice to exuberant capacity crowds.

JEsther Entertainment: Does the Chinese government know anything about Beijing Taxi?
Miao Wang: I frankly don’t know. I don’t think I was on their radar. Most documentary filmmakers in China that I’ve talked to don’t work above the radar. Once you’re on their radar, they monitor everything you do. You just never know what they are going to think is sensitive and what’s not. It seems totally arbitrary to me. Especially since I don’t even live there, I’m not as aware as the people who live in China as to what are the super sensitive…words. It can just be a word that they don’t want to use to describe themselves. So, yeah, I tried to avoid being on their radar. Until they figure it out, I’ll try to avoid being on their radar for as long as I can. The film is not hyper-political. It’s not really dealing with a specific issue. I really wanted the film to just show Chinese people’s lives. These characters are just like any other human beings. They’re just trying to make it and figure out how to survive in a society that’s changing.

JE: How did you meet the three primary subjects?
MW: I just rode a lot of taxis during my first trip in November 2006. I would just chat with the driver for the duration of the cab ride, which often could be pretty long because you always get stuck in traffic. I would take a cab to different destinations every day, which also helped me figure out the layout of the city. I followed five or six different people at the beginning. I wanted to have each person lay out different elements and discuss different social commentaries. That’s why I initially picked Wei -- mainly for her family life and shifting ideas about marriage, values and tradition. From the very beginning she was very outspoken about wanting freedom and I could relate to that. I live a free person’s life. I’m a freelancer and I don’t abide to anyone’s schedule and I think that’s what she wants. That’s not really something that’s achievable in China, but there are some people who live like that. She sees some people with that lifestyle but she doesn’t have the education or the skills to be able to function independently. Then, Bai, I wanted him to show the difficulties that the older generation has had to deal with. It’s a very different experience than Zhou, who is more just like an old Beijinger. He just wants to have an easy life. I really wanted Zhou to show those old Beijinger qualities and the leisurely lifestyle. He could come off as a total slacker but at the same time its kind of nice…and Zen.

JE: How did you come upon the concept of using taxi drivers to tell this story?
MW: Right before I started working on Beijing Taxi, I had finished a 30-minute documentary short film [Yellow Ox Mountain]. I decided that I really wanted to make a film about Beijing to document the changes going on in China right before the Olympics. I could have waited, but I felt like I had to start right way. It was a crucial time and I felt like it was a time that really needed to be documented. I was chatting with one of the artists from Yellow Ox Mountain -- he grew up in Beijing -- about how taxi drivers are so gregarious. There are always stories about taxi drivers. So, that led me to think that I should make a film about taxi drivers. It would up being such a great visual device, being able to show Beijing from the point of view of the taxis. Since the very beginning it was a common thread between the characters. I didn’t want to make a film about the taxi industry. I didn’t want to explain things, I just wanted to show the characters lives.

JE: Are any of the subjects of Beijing Taxi channeling your opinions on China?
MW: Obviously. In every documentary it is decided in the editing room what to include. Everything is subjective even when it attempts to be objective. But I really wanted to show different opinions, which does reflect my opinion because I believe more in the gray areas than the black and white. I wanted to show how there has been a lot of progress in China. The tour guide on the bus at the end of the film really captures how I feel about China. China is so much about contradictions right now. It’s not perfect and it’s not horrible. Too often it’s portrayed as one extreme or the other. In western media you always hear about the bad things; of course they are all happening and they need to be recognized and addressed. I live in the West and I don’t see anything about China that shows real people. There is no connection between the people in China and the western world. Whenever you think of China, you think of this “idea” almost. But then there’s the Chinese media, which portrays China as perfect. They want to only show their representation of beautiful, which I find silly because sometimes if they would just show the reality people would make more connections to the images; whereas, if you show only the glittery images then the West will think that China is just spreading propaganda. I’m trying to balance the different perspectives. The three characters talk about how their lives have definitely improved. I grew up in China when it was very poor -- you didn’t have enough food to eat, you had to worry about the necessities in life. But now you don’t have to worry about the necessities in life as much, though life has become a lot more complicated. I have certain nostalgia for China’s “innocence” during communist times. Everyone was equal, though equally poor, but it wasn’t the ideal communism where people would be equal in wealth. Everything has changed and China has become privatized and the inequalities are so vast.

PSIFF 2011: AFTERSHOCK

FILM REVIEW: THE DREAMS OF JINSHA

ID FILM FESTIVAL: FOG

FILM REVIEW: SPRING FEVER

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MIAO WANG