Water being released from the Three Gorges Dam in central China's Hubei province. The state council has admitted the dam is creating a legacy of major environmental and social problems. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Last week, both The Guardian and The New York Times reported on a statement released by the Chinese government, and approved by prime minister Wen Jiabao, that acknowledged “urgent problems” facing the Three Gorges Dam project.

Started in 1992, the construction of the world’s biggest hydropower plant has necessitated the relocation of 1.4 million citizens and the destruction of over 1,000 towns and villages. Victims of the massive flooding include the cites of 1,000 year old Fengjie and 1,700 year old Gong Tan, the last months of which are chronicled in the landmark documentaries Before the Flood and Before the Flood II, directed by Li Yifan and Yan Yu.

Filmed in cinema-verite style, these documentaries do the work of recording the breathtaking natural beauty of these historic cities that will soon be wiped away. The filmmakers also document the struggles of the town’s residents as they are forced out of the homes that they have built and held for generations and asked to relocate to smaller residences where they face the possibilities of unemployment and deeper poverty. These citizens stand against government bureaucrats to protest their mistreatment and organize as a community to protect their homes, livelihood and history.

Famed painter Liu Xiaodong also does his part to stand against the eradication of Fengjie and other cities falling under the floods of the Three Gorges Dam project in the documentary Dong, directed by Jia Zhangke. His sprawling canvases depict displaced workers and residents, and well as the landscapes that will soon be no more.

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

Since the completion of the barrier in 2006, researchers have seen a rise in the pollution of reservoir, citing that the water has been “…plagued by algae and pollution that would previously have been washed away.”

Responses to these problems include the possibility of a push back against construction and the possibility of further relocations of residents in order to restore ecologically ravished regions facing some of the worst droughts since 2003. Environmental experts at the Asia Society’s Center on United-States China Relations assessed the implications of this recent report, stating “There’s a kind of a balance sheet of benefits and liabilities that have come out of this project…My sense is that the Chinese government is getting better and better at collecting information about things like this.” He added, “They know if they don’t fix these problems there will be dire consequences.” Longtime critic of the project, Dai Qing, however, is less optimistic. “The government built a dam but destroyed a river…No matter how much effort the government makes to ease the risks, it is infinitesimal. The state council is spending more money on the project rather than investigating fully. I cannot see a real willingness to solve the problem.”

Relevant Classroom Use

Ghost Town (Fei Cheng)
directed by Zhao Dayong
Tucked away in a rugged corner of Southwest China, a village is haunted by traces of China’s cultural past while its residents piece together a day-by-day existence.

Relevant Classroom Use

Though I Am Gone (dir. Hu Jie)

If you are attending the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) joint conference with the International Convention of Asian Studies (ICAS) this week in Honolulu, Hawaii – or if you happen to be in Honolulu, you are cordially invited to free screenings of films distributed by dGenerate: 1428 by Du Haibin and Though I Am Gone by Hu Jie. These screenings are organized by the Asian Educational Media Service (AEMS), which has put together a more extensive program of screenings than in past years.

AAS-ICAS Film Expo 2011: Seeing Asia Eye To Eye will take place March 31-April 2, 2011 in the Hawaii Convention Center’s ‘Emalani Theater, Room 320. The screenings are free and open to the public. This program is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.

dGenerate representative Sean Shodahl will be attending the Expo and will be on hand for both dGenerate screenings. You may reach him at skshodahl *at* gmail *dot* com if you would like an in-person consultation.

1428
Directed by Du Haibin
2009.  60 mins. China.
Distributed by dGenerate Films; www.dgeneratefilms.com
Haibin Du’s award winning documentary of the earthquake that devastated Sichuan Province in 2008 as it explores how victims, citizens, and government respond to a national tragedy.
Thursday, March 31, 2011, 12:00pm

Though I Am Gone
Directed by Hu Jie
2007. 68 mins. China.
Distributed by dGenerate Films; www.dgeneratefilms.com
In 1966, the principal of an all-girls school, was beaten to death by her students.  The incident, one of the first to ignite the cultural revolution, is documented here as told to the filmmaker by her husband, in this gripping film.
Saturday, April 2, 2011, 2:10pm

Visit AEMS for a full schedule of the screenings.

Relevant Classroom Use

Though I Am Gone (dir. Lin Zhao)

DGENERATE FILMS EVENTS FOR THE WEEK OF 3/28/11-4/3/11

Three Times at the Chinese Cinema Club at MOCA

Friday, April 1st at 7 PM

Address:
Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre St.
New York, NY 10013

Description:
4 out of 4 stars from Roger Ebert
Directed by Hou Hsaio Hsien, Three Times tells three separate stories of love between May and Chen, set in 1911, 1966, and 2005.

Tickets are $10/adult; $8/student & senior, and free for MOCA members. RSVP to education@mocanyc.org or call 212.619.4785.

Karamay at Yerba Buena Center for the Art

Sunday, April 3 at 1 PM

Screening as part of the Series: Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries

Address:
701 Mission Street
San Francisco, California, 94103

Description:
“an astonishing achievement on every level” – Robert Koehler of Variety
In 1994, a a community center fire broke out, killing over 300 children. This film is an investigation of a national tragedy long held in silence.

Tickets for the screening are $7 for general admission and $5 for seniors, students, and teachers. Gallery admission is included in ticket price. Tickets can be purchased online here.

Info on more events, including screenings in Honolulu and New Jersey, after the break.

Disorder at the Free Monroe Township Public Library

Monday, March 28 at 6:30 PM

Address:
713 Marsha Avenue
Williamstown, New Jersey

Description:
As urbanization in China advances at a breakneck pace, Chinese cities teeter on the brink of mayhem. Hua Hsu of The Atlantic calls it “one of the most mesmerizing films I’ve seen in ages“.

The screening is free.

Crime and Punishment at the Centre for Contemporary Arts

Tuesday, March 29 at 7 PM

Screening as part of the Ricefield Chinese Language Film Season

Address:
350 Sauchiehall Street
Glasgow, United Kingdom

Description:
On the North Korean border, Chinese military police enforce the law with a heavy hand, leading to moments of harrowing abuse and surreal satire.  Variety critic Robert Koehler calls Crime and Punishment “Stunning“.

Tickets are free.  Call the CCA Box Office on 0141 352 4900 to reserve your ticket.

1428 at the AAS/ICAS Film Expo

Thursday, March 31 at 12 PM

Screening as part of Seeing Asia Eye to Eye

Address:
Hawaii Convention Center
1801 Kal’kaua Avenue
Honolulu, Hawaii

Description:
Du Haibin’s award-winning documentary of the earthquake that devastated China’s Sichuan province in 2008 explores how victims, citizens and government responded to a national tragedy.  1428 is a vision of human devastation that is “fascinating, beautifully crafted” (Ronnie Scheib, Variety).

The screenings are free and open to the public.

Though I Am Gone at the AAS/ICAS Film Expo

Saturday, April 2 at 2:10 PM

Screening as part of Seeing Asia Eye to Eye

Address:
Hawaii Convention Center
1801 Kal’kaua Avenue
Honolulu, Hawaii

Description:
In 1966, the Cultural Revolution exploded throughout China, and Bian Zhongyun, the vice principal of a prestigious school in Beijing, was beaten to death by her own students.

The screenings are free and open to the public.

For a full list of upcoming events, visit our Events Page.

Relevant Classroom Use

Mouthpiece (dir. Guo Xizhi)

This week we are spotlighting the Reel China Documentary Biennial, which held its Fifth edition last October with a showcase of nine recent documentaries produced by independent filmmakers in China. To commemorate the event, we are posting a handful of reports by attendees of the festival.

By Christopher Campbell

Guo Xizhi’s Mouthpiece is part of the recent “vérité” tradition in Chinese documentary that continues to be partly inspired by the work of American filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, known for his faux-objective “fly-on-the-wall” approach to his subject matter. However, the film’s major departure from the conventions of that detached, voyeuristic style with its seemingly invisible camera –and this appears to be true for many other observational documentaries in China right now – is in the way it includes so much acknowledgement of the camera and cameraman, breaking the “fourth wall” of what would otherwise be a strictly empirical perspective.

This actually benefits Mouthpiece thematically with regards to the documentary’s presentation of the confused and complicated concepts of the media. Constantly Guo’s camera is mistaken for or presumed to be part of or representing the news crew(s) he is documenting (they appear to employ the same kind of small DV cameras presumably used by Guo). But perhaps this is not so strange? What, after all, separates the artist’s lens from that of the television journalist’s? Very little, aesthetically. Yet, for a medium and movement that extends from and is able to work outside of the state-run propaganda machine, and which therefore tends to be thought of as a greater outlet for the independent voice, the documentary comes across as the true mouthpiece of the title.

The film lays witness primarily to the workings of the Shenzhen TV news program “First Spot,” inside and out. Guo turns his camera on the makers of the local media, showing us production meetings and fairly candid views of the long and short processes of putting together the show, but it also follows journalists on location for a peek at how they gather the stories that will later be reported on. This second aspect provides the more interesting parts of Mouthpiece, because it opens up a layered visual discourse pertaining to the question of what exactly is being documented. Is the film about the newsmakers or the news itself? Is it about how they distort the news or is it self-reflexively about how documentary can reveal such distortions while concurrently itself being potentially distorting, or at least limiting?

The duality of Guo’s lens as both window to the actions (some of which appear highly unethical) of the “First Spot” crews and window to that which these journalists are covering is quite thought provoking.  The slum dwellers and arrested teens and shop owners are foremost directly communicating to the journalists, yet they are also simultaneously being captured by the documentary.  How they will be represented to an audience, and to what audience they will be represented, is clearly different with each of the two (types of) camera lenses and ultimate (edited) visual media products. There is an intriguing amount of blurring of medium going on, though at the same time there are constant reminders of the separation of news and documentary. Civilians and police are regularly asking Guo if he is a member of the press, while employees of the “First Look” team also occasionally ask the same, only jokingly.

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

1428, Du Haibin’s primarily observational film of the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, has similar moments involving queries from onscreen subjects. One woman asks the filmmaker if he is shooting for the media or for himself. He answers that it’s the latter, but of course whether intended or not it has ended up being for international viewing (the film has played many of the world’s prominent film festivals, including Venice, where it won a major prize). The concept of personal purpose, though, is likely different to the general Chinese civilian than it is to the global audience. That woman in 1428 may never have the opportunity to see the film, or any other documentary of the sort, and so for her there are only those two distinctions. Here, on the other hand, we think of shooting for “ourselves” as being exclusively connected to home movies, which tend not to be edited into something for public show. Still, as an artist, Du is indeed shooting for himself, in that he is at the time shooting material for an expected expression, from his own perspective, of that which he and his camera have witnessed.

Another woman approaches Du’s camera assuming it and him to be “the media.” She is not corrected or at least she ignores any clarification of intent and proceeds to use the opportunity to complain about the government’s handling of its relief effort and her own personal experience with the unsatisfactory issuing of electric blankets, cooking utensils and other needed goods. For her the film becomes a mouthpiece for her criticisms, yet ironically her vocal protests might likely have been excluded in a news media report. While she thinks she is talking to the media, she perhaps is better represented by in fact unknowingly talking to the greater witness of the (festival-going) world. Then again, for much of that audience, 1428 may function more as a kind of from-a-distance disaster tourism with its consistently matter-of-fact view of the tragedy and its victims (the audience at the Reel China screening of the film, it is worth noting, seemed more emotionally responsive to the suffering of animals depicted on screen).

It is interesting that domestic forms of disaster tourism are portrayed in 1428 near the end of the film, when Du returns to the region for follow-up observance and documents the people hawking photos and other items related to the earthquake (much like what went on, and continues, in NYC after 9/11). The film does have additional purpose for international viewers, though, in that it displays angles on the tragedy that the Chinese government and media have limited in their exported acknowledgment and coverage. In this address 1428 is akin to Mouthpiece in the way it extends from what is officially recognized and communicated domestically.

Even in its apparently exhaustive documentation of the earthquake aftermath, however, there is, as is also the case with Mouthpiece, a sense we are witnessing only a peripheral and general address of subjects, situations and issues. 1428 includes the basics of post-disaster occurrences for an encapsulating yet altogether briefly concentrated and chaptered look the homelessness, physical and spiritual loss, media attention and exploitations experienced in the province at the times of filming. And 1428 is neatly formulated and tied together with recurring motifs (the constantly present tramp, or “idiot,” being the most notable) for a dramatic and poetic package that has been produced by and from one specific artistic vantage point.

At nearly two-thirds the running time of Mouthpiece, Du’s 1428 is comparatively concise, edited for greater consumption, cinematically. The three hours allotted to Mouthpiece do not really give it any more of a comprehensive truthfulness, partly because the subjects documented are still very episodic. We are taken from story to story in much the same way the news would guide us through reports on them. More time is spent on this or that story, though presumably each might in fact be focused more fully – albeit differently – on “First Spot” than in the film, but it ultimately comes off as a chronologically strung-together collection of sequences, an experiential film that likely could have just kept on going, along with the continued life and operations it observes. Maybe Mouthpiece ends when it does because it has gone through and represented the gist of all Shenzhen’s important ongoing issues? And maybe the film’s length, along with its year-later follow-up, means to remind us that neither a city’s problems nor the media’s coverage of these problems (and the problems with that coverage) ever cease? One of the main distinctions between documentary and news coverage, which is remembered thanks to Mouthpiece, is the fact that at some point the documentary does need to end.

Relevant Classroom Use

Disorder (dir. Huang Weikai)

This week we are spotlighting the Reel China Documentary Biennial, which held its Fifth edition last October with a showcase of nine recent documentaries produced by independent filmmakers in China. To commemorate the event, we are posting a handful of reports by attendees of the festival.

By Mirela David

Three documentaries made an impression on me at the 5^th Reel China Documentary Biennial: Du Haibin’s 1428, Ji Dan’s Spiral Staircase of Harbin and Huang Weikai’s Disorder. I will compare the three movies, taking into consideration the following aspects: how they approach everyday life, public/private spheres, reality, censorship, themes and genre.

Du Haibin’s 1428 explores the quotidian hardships of the survivors of the Sichuan earthquake: from living in ruins, trying to cook with meager means, and waiting in line to get food from the government, to discussions dealing with compensation and living in temporary housing. Ji Dan’s Spiral Staircase of Harbin examines the inner struggles of two families, surrounding their children and their personal dramas. Scenes of everyday life abound in this documentary too: house chores, cooking, eating, going to the marketplace, bargaining, worrying over money. Huang Weikai’s Disorder, on the other hand, is not  so much concerned with elements of everyday life as he is with unexpected, out of ordinary events that can take place, such as the malfunctioning of a hydrant that inundates an intersection, or  the various naked people on a bridge interrupting traffic.

The way these authors explore their found events can also be analyzed by considering the relationship between public and private spheres. Du Haibin explores public destruction in the first part of his documentary, and moves deeper into private family stories,  dramas and emotions in the latter part. Ji Dan exclusively focuses on the inner life of her characters and confines the documentary to the privacy of their home or work, with one notable exception when accompanying a woman on her way to see her husband in jail. In stark contrast to both, there’s Huang Weikai’s hallucinatory capturing of what can go terribly wrong in the public sphere.

When trying to assess how these various directors approach reality, it is imperative to reflect on technical aspects such as the camera, DV technology, censorship, and the presence or absence of a narrator.  Even though there is a pretense in documentaries to present reality, especially in such documentaries where the absence of a narrator makes it more convincing to believe one can render something more objectively, this is a mere illusion. The issue of representation is forever daunting. All directors make conscious editing choices of what to include and what to cut, and through that process they can ably modify the message of the documentary.

The Spiral Staircase of Harbin (dir. Ji Dan)

The position of the cameraman and the absence of the interviewers are particularly fascinating. In 1428 there is one instance where a person addresses the cameraman, and he answers back. Otherwise there is no contact with the cameraman. However, in Spiral Staircase of Harbin documentary you get the feeling the characters are constantly talking in a confessional mode to the camera, which has total access to their private life. In Disorder the camera is close to where the action is, where the most shocking things occur. This is enabled by the emergence of the new DV technology, which makes it accessible for any ordinary person to record on-the-spot videos. This explains the violence and the out of ordinary stories presented in this movie. The director’s craft then consists of editing the stories, as well as in his choice of depicting the story in black and white images.

Even though the various palettes of colors prompted him to opt for black/white images, they create a sense of bleakness, which make the stories even more striking. In representing reality, it appears that for Huang Weikai visual images are much more striking than words. Watching Disorder you are constantly bombarded with shocking visually suggestive images. By contrast 1428 consists of both visually shocking and interesting spontaneous dialogues and confessions. Music is also salient in 1428, and even though it was custom made I recognized the musical accompaniment of a Romanian pop song that was paradoxically in vogue in Europe and has even been taken up by Rihanna in the US. Even though most songs were meant to express feelings, the chaotic message of this song (at least the Romanian version) goes well with the mayhem in Sichuan and its circulation underscores the global circulation of music.  Similarly, dialogue and confession seem to be the most germane elements in Ji Dan’s movie.

Related to the issue of representing reality is censorship, and whether what is presented on the screen is the director’s choice, or has gone through the censor’s bureau and has been screened or “harmonized” so as not to disturb certain political sensibilities. Disorder, with the shockingly violent images of policemen dragging women and beating people on the street, would certainly be problematic; therefore I find it quite bold to make such a movie. It’s likely that 1428, would not pass censorship.. There are a couple of scenes in 1428 where the people who appear in the documentary are trying to decipher just how much they should engage in political criticism on camera, as well as detect whether this is a state documentary, in which case they can try to demand help.

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

The absence of a narrator or an omnipresent voice gives more credence to the apparent reality. The construction of the narrative is intriguing and parallels can be established between all three movies, in the choices the directors make to intertwine more stories. Ji Dan only has two stories, while the other two directors work with more stories that they interweave. Du Haibin has probably the most sophisticated technique of narrative. 1428 employs the figure of a man in rags, apparently a madman, who appears at several key moments, including at the beginning and the end of the documentary. The madman functions as a linkage between the various stories, somewhat like a narrative motif. Even though he isn’t introduced from the beginning, he will become part of a particular story told by his father. Striking is his father’s assessment that his son’s life before the earthquake was even worse than the temporary housing where they now live.

Huang Weikai also achieves a state of disarray in Disorder, as the English title of his movie suggests, by the disruptive  manner in which he arranges the hallucinating and incredible video imagines he has at his disposal. While Du Haibin shot 175 hours of footage, which he then cut, Huang had at his disposal almost 1000 hours. Both manage to capture the state of absurdity that natural or manmade disasters can create. It’s worth noting that pigs function as symbols in both Huang’s and Du’s documentaries to express this state of mayhem, whether running around to elude being sent to death or running into traffic. The idea that things aren’t going as they should be and that one has lost control over one’s life is investigated on a more psychologically charged level by Ji Dan.

What brings Ji Dan’s and Du Haibin’s documentaries closer is the prominence they assign to feeling. Du describes the process of editing 1428 as first organizing his own feelings while wanting to capture the feelings of the survivors at the same time. Ji’s Spiral Staircase of Harbin also examines the inner feelings of the teenage daughter, of the frustrated mother, as well of the disgruntled father and tired wife. Du Haibin focuses on mourning while Ji Dan focuses on melancholia. If we think of Freud’s comparison of mourning with melancholia and their shared symptoms these documentaries seem even more similar. While mourning refers to loss of loved ones as in Haibin’s movie, the object of melancholia is mostly located in the unconsciousness, since it is not clear. One could guess that the impossibility of communication could be the cause of depression for the young girl in Ji Dan’s movie, while the problems of having a husband in jail and a daughter refusing to go to college would explain the mother’s frustrated state; similar problems with a teenager out of control plague the father of another family, who also has to face a terminal illness. However, it is all left undetermined: an impossibility of communication encumbers the mothers of both families, the first one unable to speak with her daughter, the second with her husband.

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

One of the most exciting parts of these documentaries has to do with their informal engagement with the politics of ordinary people. Most often than not, the effect is comical, although some people’s political comments are staggering. In 1428 some of the people demand that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao should come and speak to the earthquake victims. The scene when an official stops over an impromptu pot in the middle of the street is quite humorous, when a man skillfully thanks the government for the help he received.  Many of the people are grumbling and questioning some of the relief efforts: thus the Moshi village priority project enrages some peasants, who protest they can’t even get a loan to build a house. Their understanding of politics is quite sophisticated, particularly with one woman who complains vehemently while at the same time making it clear she’s not arguing against the government. Sometimes they even discuss conspiracies, disputing whether the government knew about the earthquake and didn’t announce it. The answer that comes from one of the people is quite amusing: they would have saved the officials. Overall the comments are quite surprising and in line with the lively political debates you can find in any park in Chinese cities. Politics are discussed in Spiral Staircase of Harbin too, at the mother’s workplace, when her coworkers are complaining that 2008 was China’s biggest shame, since the government was not able to take measures to prevent the stock market crisis. The most comical political comments come from the father, who, while watching the Olympics, argues that China is becoming a world power. Furthermore, he adds that “Mao didn’t take on the world, but that’s what’s happening here” for an even more humorous effect.

Faith, like politics, is also explored in subversive ways. The woman’s ritual of lighting a circle of candles in the middle of the street in Spiral Staircase of Harbin is quite striking. She prays for everything from her husband in jail to her daughter passing the exam.  Meanwhile, the father’s thoughts of turning to Christianity point to a crisis in faith. The same crisis is explored by 1428, in the dialogues of the peasants who try to make sense of the tragedy. One peasant exclaims that “Buddha cannot even save himself let alone us from the disaster”. Other people mourn the loss of people as well as the destruction of Daoist and Buddhist temples.

All in all, there are palpable similarities between the three movies, in terms of genre, narrative (the lack of a single narrator; intertwined stories), their focus on sentiment and pain and a pervading chaos, as well as the often comical way people engage informally with politics, and a particular approach to issues of faith.

Mirela David is a Ph.D candidate  at NYU in Modern Chinese History with a minor in Modern Japanese History. She spent two years in China studying at Fudan University and has completed Master Programs at Bucharest University and Tubingen University in Germany in Sinology.

Relevant Classroom Use

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

This week we are spotlighting the Reel China Documentary Biennial, which held its Fifth edition last October with a showcase of nine recent documentaries produced by independent filmmakers in China. To commemorate the event, we are posting a handful of reports by attendees of the festival. Be sure to read the first report previously published, “Absurdity, Art and Life on Tape” by Isabella Tianzi Cai.

Accessing the Everyday

By Carol Wang

How does one access the everyday? NYU’s Reel China Documentary Biennial offered an opportunity to consider this question through a selection of contemporary documentaries from independent Chinese filmmakers. The festival began with Du Haibin’s 1428, which documents the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in a cinéma-vérité style. Du, initially arriving on the scene in Beichuan ten days after the quake, captures the images and narratives of a region reduced to rubble. A woman talks about her lost children while doing laundry, a family searches through an empty but intact dormitory for a missing son, and men duck under a crane to grab steel rods from a building site. A young unkempt man, wearing just an ill-fitting winter army coat, ambles across the frame and gazes intently into the camera with a vacant look. There is a considerable amount of news footage available from the days and weeks immediately following the earthquake; much of it is urgent, fast-paced, and sensationalistic. 1428 offers something more understated: a slower tempo, a measure of patience which seems to demonstrate the filmmaker’s concern for his subjects. Despite the abnormalities that define the lives of these individuals, there is very little drama. Real time, when transposed onto the screen, sometimes appears excruciatingly slow.

Du returns six months later to continue filming. It’s winter now, but many are still living in makeshift tent shelters, and continue to rely on government handouts to meet their daily needs. Some, though, have attempted to make their own living—the butcher trucks slabs of meat to the lot where government distributions take place, and teenagers are hawking DVDs and photos of the Beichuan disaster zone to tourists. Du plays an unexpected role here: In response to a question from a tourist, “Is the DVD okay?,” the vendor responds, “Of course, this is the Disaster Zone. If it’s no good, you can bring it back. Look, the media is documenting this” [paraphrased]—and the vendor gestures at Du’s camera, the implication being that the camera is somehow representative of officialdom. Viewers are also implicated, because we too are watching a DVD about the disaster zone.

We see the changing of seasons, and the film’s chronicling of the passage of time is steady. The message seems to be: life goes on. A father holds his toddler daughter with one hand and a twisted steel rod with the other. Du unexpectedly shows no funerals, but a wedding. The bride and groom, seen in the back of a car, arrive at their house and attempt to enter the bridal chamber. But the door is locked, and the groom, holding the bride, attempts awkwardly to kick the door in. In another scene, farmers try to herd uncooperative pigs onto a blue truck, but are only partially successful. Du seems to be depicting the quotidian in their lives as a way of reaffirming their humanity. The tragedy is not obvious—even the rubble, which signifies ruin but can also signal remaking, is commonplace in China. Is there a difference between earthquake rubble and construction rubble, unplanned destruction and planned destruction?  Throughout 1428, the absurd, the tragic, and the mundane are represented in equal measure. Is this what constitutes the everyday?

Disorder (dir. Huang Weikai)

Huang Weikai offers a very different take on daily life in Disorder, a collage of disjointed, jarring snapshots that emphasize the absurdity that is characteristic of urban China today. By compiling footage from ordinary individuals who just happened to have a camera in the right place, at the right time, Huang has captured in filmic form the pathos of China’s rapid modernization. One of the opening scenes is that of an accident: a man lies prone on the ground in front of a car, and several individuals are bent over him. They are not concerned about his health, however, having already deduced that he is not hurt but playing it up to get compensation from the driver. Without explanation or voiceovers, the film cuts from one story to another and back—police conduct a raid that yields bear claws and anteaters, a family on a walk comes across an abandoned child, a man perched on a bridge demands to speak to a specific policeman about his grievance, and an archeological site is turned overnight into a private construction zone. Here, too, there are pigs running amok. They are on a highway, and in a later shot, live pigs are scampering around dead ones killed in an accident—unseen by the camera, but visible through the aftermath.

The individuals depicted here are emotional; they are furious, confused, bemused, and irritated. But as viewers, we don’t necessarily share their emotional response to the situation. We don’t even seem to share a response with other viewers. During the screening, there seemed to be a lack of consensus on how to interpret the scenes—very few garnered uniform responses from the audience, with some sitting silently as others laughed. The instability of what can be considered normal affects what we can be amused at, and what we must take seriously. The film refuses to translate China for its audiences, and this refusal can also be seen in the title(s). The film’s English title, Disorder, compels us to view the images through a certain lens, as if Huang’s point was to convey the disorderliness and incomprehensibility of these street scenes. Yet, if one considers his original Chinese title, Xianshi Shi Guoqu De Weilai (“now is future of the past”), this is not evident. Rather, what is conveyed is a sense of temporality and orderliness that is not apparent in the film. The past comes before the present, which comes before the future.

Despite this, however, Huang forgoes any attention to the continuous passage of time in the film, perhaps because there is no overarching narrative. All the footage is offered as representations of the immediate present, and even when the camera returns to a story after visiting others, it is as if no time has passed at all. The pigs are still on the highway, the man is still standing on the bridge’s handrails, and the baby continues to lie among the weeds. And since continuous time illustrates or is a marker of normalcy, the lack here contributes to the sense of the abnormal, the ridiculous, and the extraordinary. In very different ways, both 1428 and Disorder counter the prevailing narratives of modernization in China. An argument can be made that the documentary impulse in China is driven by a desire for truth and to show what the censored newscasts cannot. Du’s method is to let his subjects speak, and he dares us to listen, for as long as it takes them to tell their stories. Huang’s challenge to the viewer is of a very different order: he confronts our desire for coherence and linearity, and challenges us to redefine the normal and the everyday.

The absence of a narrative arc, and the fact that Huang did not film the footage himself, communicates a lack of investment in any of the individuals depicted. Disorder cannot demonstrate concern, as 1428 does, by hearing out laments, accusations, or stories of lost loved ones, because Huang was not present at the moment of filming.  By entering the creative process at a later stage, Huang cannot help but depict the individuals as mere symbols or representations of urbanization, rather than as people. If the impulse for consuming Chinese documentary is to learn something—to acquire information, or to better understand some previously under-explicated aspect of Chinese life, one walks away from Disorder not having learned much of anything. Instead, what Huang imparts to his audience is a mood, a feeling, and something atmospheric, which reveals much more about China than a tidy narrative ever could.

Carol Wang is a graduate student in anthropology at The New School for Social Research.

Relevant Classroom Use

Du Haibin speaks at the YMCA Chinatown in San Francisco, event co-sponsored by the S.F. Asia Society

The two-week tour of Du Haibin and 1428 across the U.S. has finally concluded. We were able to collect a few photos along the way.  We extend our deepest gratitude to all of the venues and sponsors that played host to Du Haibin and his award-winning film. Special thanks to New York University and Reel China for sponsoring Du Haibin’s first-ever visit to the U.S., which made all of his screenings and appearances possible.

Visit our events page for information on upcoming screenings.

dGenerate is already making arrangements for Chinese screenings and director appearances for the winter and spring. If you are interested in organizing an event, please contact us.

More photos from the tour after the break.

NYU Reel China discussion panel: (l. to r.) Zhu Rikun of Fanhall Films, NYU Professor of Cinema Studies and Reel China curator Zhen Zhang, NYU Professor of Cinema Studies Dan Streible, Du Haibin and Reel China translator Cindy Chen

Du Haibin speaks with Mike Fu of Columbia University's Weatherhead Institute at a screening of 1428 held at the Maysles Institute.

UC Santa Barbara Professor Michael Berry talks with Du Haibin at UCSB screening of 1428.

dGenerate Films' Kevin Lee lectures on Chinese independent films prior to a screening of 1428 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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Du Haibin, director of 1428

Award-winning filmmaker Du Haibin continues his first ever visit to the U.S. this week. This past week saw screenings of his films at or near capacity at Stanford University, the San Francisco Chinatown YMCA (sponsored by the SF Asia Society), Reel China at NYU (main sponsors of Du Haibin’s trip), the Maysles Institute, and UnionDocs. Many thanks to all of our partners and sponsors for their work in organizing this tour.

The tour continues in the Northeast, Chicago and Southern California. Details below:

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19th

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20th
7:00 PM
Yale University
Auditorium at Whitney Humanities Center
53 Wall Street
New Haven, CT
Director Du Haibin to attend

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21st
University of Chicago
5:30pm-7:30pm Screening
7:30pm-8:30pm Discussion and Q&A
Classics 21

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22nd
California Institute of the Arts
Film Today Class
Bijou Auditorium
Presentation by Thom Andersen and Bérénice Reynaud
24700 McBean Parkway Valencia CA 91355
(661)255.1050
Director Du Haibin to attend

Rice University
Room 301, Sewell Hall
6100 Main St.
Houston, TX 77005

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23rd
University of California, Santa Barbara
UCSB Multicultural Center
University Center room 1504
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6050
(805) 893-8411
http://mcc.sa.ucsb.edu/ContactUs.aspx
Director Du Haibin to attend

Relevant Classroom Use

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

France Pepper gives Du Haibin’s 1428 a strong review for the Asian Educational Media Service:

Du’s down-to-earth lens leaves you practically feeling the dust of the earthquake in your lungs. He portrays the reality of daily life as early as ten days after the earthquake where people are salvaging pieces of metal with their bare hands from collapsed buildings and selling them to buy food….

This documentary is especially informative when studying contemporary Chinese society.  We see, for example, how the government still plays a major role in shaping public attitude towards the communist party.   At the same time, it takes a close-up look at the lives of ordinary people. This two-tiered perspective is emblematic of how many aspects of Chinese society play out in reality, not just during the aftermath of an earthquake, but in everyday life.

1428 continues its three week tour of the US, with director Du Haibin appearing at select locations. Special thanks to New York University and Reel China for sponsoring Du’s visit.

Here is this week’s schedule:

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12th
Stanford University, California
Pigott Hall
Main Quad, Building 260, Room 113
Director Du Haibin to attend
http://events.stanford.edu/events/247/24793/

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13th
SF Asia Society
Chinatown YMCA
855 Sacramento St.
San Francisco CA 94108
(415) 576-9622
http://www.ymcasf.org/chinatown/

FRIDAY-SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15
Cinema Studies Screening Room
721 Broadway, 6th floor
New York University, New York
Director Du Haibin to attend

This screening opens “Reel China, 5th Documentary Biennial at NYU”
Fri-Sunday: Oct 15-18
NYU Center for Religion and Media/Cinema Studies
http://crm.as.nyu.edu/object/crm.events.screenings

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16th
Maysles Cinema
343 Lenox Ave
Ground Fl., New York, NY 10027
(212) 582-6050
http://www.mayslesinstitute.org/cinema/calendar.html
Co-sponsored by Weatherhead East Asian Institute: http://www.columbia.edu/weai/

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17th
*screening Umbrella*
Union Docs
322 Union Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11206
(718) 395-7902
http://www.uniondocs.org/
Master Class/Workshop led by Kevin Lee to follow
Director Du Haibin to attend

The tour continues next week at Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. See the full tour schedule: http://dgeneratefilms.com/events/1428-tours-the-u-s-in-october/

Relevant Classroom Use