Intelligent Chinese Films Hit the Mainstream
Caught in the Web, directed by Chen, was selected as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but failed to make it onto the short list. It was the fourth Academy Award nomination for one of Chen’s films. Zhang for his part has seen his films nominated three times for the holy grail of awards.
While China’s leading film directors have focused their efforts on cracking the global film market, young Chinese vanguard directors have taken up the mantle of exploratory, artistic filmmaking. Wang Xiaoshuai is one of them. As a representative figure of Chinese independent film, in the 1990s, Wang’s work began to receive attention at international film festivals. The Days, shot in 1993 by Wang, won multiple awards in several international film festivals, and was selected as one of the best 100 films of all time by the BBC in 1995 to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of film.
Wang is regarded as a member of the sixth generation of Chinese film directors. Many of Wang’s directorial works have been banned in China’s mainland for sensitive content. Wang has stuck to the pursuit of ideals in his films, employing the perspective of intellectuals but focusing on ordinary people’s daily existence in order to show concern for people’s inner spiritual life. In 2001, his Beijing Bicycle clinched the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear Award at the 51st Berlin International Film Festival. The film also drew some criticism, and was banned in China’s mainland until 2004. Some reviewers also viewed Beijing Bicycle as copied from Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 film Bicycle Thieves. In 2005, Wang repeated his success at the Cannes Film Festival when his Shanghai Dreams won the Jury Prize.
Works by other Chinese film directors such as Gu Changwei, Jia Zhangke and Wang Quan’an, have also drawn global attention in the past decade. In 2006, following in the footsteps of Zhang Yimou, Jia Zhangke became the second director from China’s mainland to win the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival with Still Life, a powerful humanistic film. The film tells the story of two people in search of their spouses. Han Sanming, a coal-miner in Shanxi Province, buys a wife from Sichuan Province. Soon after his wife gives birth to a baby, the Public Security Bureau rescues her as an abducted woman and sends her home. Sixteen years later, Han comes to Fengjie, a city upstream from the massive Three Gorges Dam, in search of his daughter. However, his former wife’s hometown has been flooded due to the huge dam project. After many twists and turns, Han finally meets his wife and they decide to remarry. Another storyline in the film revolves around Shen Hong, a nurse, in search of her husband. In the end she finds him, but they decide to get divorced due to the disintegration of their emotional bond. Film reviewers spoke highly of Jia’s humanistic outlook on Chinese realities, especially at a time when Chinese directors have been tempted to eschew Chinese aesthetics in favor of Hollywood-style filmmaking. Jia’s works have also received international acclaim.
As a six-generation Chinese film director, Wang Quan’an’s films mostly focus on rural west China, distinguished by the unique customs of China’s ethnic groups. His directorial work Tuya’s Marriage won several international awards including the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. The film tells the story of Tuya, a Mongolian woman, who tries to find a husband to take care of her handicapped ex, and was destined to touch audiences. Another of Wang Quan’an’s films, Apart Together, won Best Screenplay at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival.
All Chinese filmmakers dream of reaching a wider, global audience. Watching Chinese film is a shortcut to understanding the country, and the country’s directors have been eager to showcase the full, complex reality of modern China. But winning over global audiences is no easy task. Chinese film cannot copy Hollywood; that much is clear. The country’s film industry over the last two decades has been carving itself out a niche, and this is still an ongoing process.
