UCLA Film to showcase “˜New Chinese Cinema’
By MariaSan Filippo
Nov. 21, 2002 9:00 p.m.
There’s a lot more to Chinese cinema than kung fu and
crouching tigers.
The UCLA Film and Television Archive presents a two-week series,
beginning Saturday at 7:30 p.m., of “New Chinese
Cinema,” offering a selection of films from mainland
China’s so-called Sixth Generation of filmmakers at the James
Bridge Theater. And there’s not a single martial arts flick
among them.
“These are filmmakers who are very engaged in what’s
going on in the society right now and in examining those issues in
their films,” said Cheng-Sim Lim, head of programming for the
archive and co-curator of the series.
In 2000, the Archive highlighted works from the post-Cultural
Revolution era of filmmakers known as the Fifth Generation. The new
series devotes itself to the up-and-coming cadre of talents who
face a foe more frightening than any wu xia warrior: the Chinese
Film Bureau.
Ten years after the 1993 reform that ostensibly allowed for more
leniency within the film industry, China’s young filmmakers
continue to teeter on the brink of illegality in order to get their
films made.
“With the Sixth Generation we see the emergence of a truly
independent, underground segment of young filmmakers who are
willing to forego official sanction,” Lim said.
Sixth Generation filmmakers dodge censorship by having their
films officially produced abroad. First-time director Emily Tang,
whose film “Conjugation” (screening Dec. 5) delves into
the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, produced her film in Hong
Kong.
“We went directly to the filmmakers, so there was no
chance of running into a government dictate of what we could or
couldn’t show,” said Lim.
The opening night screening of “Springtime in a Small
Town” heralds the return of director Tian Zhuangzhuang after
a ten-year hiatus during which he was officially banned from making
films. Considered a father figure to the Sixth Generation, Tian
remained on the scene despite his exile from the set.
“He stayed within the system and even opened a production
studio to help young filmmakers come into the fold,” said
Bérénice Reynaud, professor of film at the California
Institute of Art and co-curator of the series.
Another film with a controversial legacy is “Devils on the
Doorstep,” screening Nov. 30, which was withdrawn from
circulation world-wide after it was first shown at the 2000 Cannes
Film Festival.
Director Jiang Wen, whose film is set during the World War II
Japanese occupation of China, refused to confine his characters to
the official binary of heroic Chinese versus villainous
Japanese.
In the film, a family of Chinese peasants come to recognize
humanity in the enemy when they are forced to hide two Japanese
prisoners of war in their home.
“It presents a much more nuanced vision of the situation,
but the Chinese authorities were not ready for such a realistic
humanitarian statement,” said Reynaud.
Where the Fifth Generation was frequently censored for
portraying an exoticized and antiquated China, the Sixth
Generation’s realist depictions of modern Chinese society is
no less controversial with the authorities.
Director Cui Zi’en, whose “Enter the Clowns”
will screen Dec. 7, has almost single-handedly inaugurated a New
Queer Cinema in China despite the Chinese government’s
attempts to curtail his activism.
“The old guard of the bureaucracy have no managerial
abilities; their only power is their ability to say no and
they’re going to use it. The censors are going to continue to
interfere,” said Reynaud.
Zhang Yuan, known as China’s bad-boy filmmaker, has won a
decade’s worth of international accolades for films that were
banned back home. For his latest feature “I Love You”
(screening Dec. 5), Zhang made the controversial decision to submit
his film for official approval from the Film Bureau.
Despite accusations that he was compromising his work, Zhang
insists he simply wanted to have his film shown in China.
At the crossroads of an authoritarian history and the emerging
market economy, China’s film industry is poised for change.
But for the time being, collaboration with the government is the
only choice directors have for domestic distribution.
“Chinese people are pragmatic; they’ll find ways to
keep the studios afloat,” said Reynaud. “They’ll
find ideological reasons to keep going, so I’m
optimistic.”
