Beijing Flickers screens tonight at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (Webster Hall 470 E Lockwood Ave Webster Groves, Mo 63119 ) tonight, Tues, 12/17 at 7:30Pm. It’s the final film in the Webster University Film Series Global Lens Series.
The critically acclamied film played to a full house last mont hat the St. Louis International Film Festival.
Sam Moffitt of Wamg said of Beijing Flickers:
“Yao Bao tells us at the beginning that he has not spoken in 127 days, then he proceeds to tell us why. The main reason being, after his girlfriend dumps him for a rich man he got drunk and tried to eat the glass. Somehow everyone in Beijing knows about this. He is also just depressed about life in general and most of his friends appear to be depressed as well. Among others we meet the members of a Chinese rock band, (not bad by the way), a transvestite,...
The critically acclamied film played to a full house last mont hat the St. Louis International Film Festival.
Sam Moffitt of Wamg said of Beijing Flickers:
“Yao Bao tells us at the beginning that he has not spoken in 127 days, then he proceeds to tell us why. The main reason being, after his girlfriend dumps him for a rich man he got drunk and tried to eat the glass. Somehow everyone in Beijing knows about this. He is also just depressed about life in general and most of his friends appear to be depressed as well. Among others we meet the members of a Chinese rock band, (not bad by the way), a transvestite,...
- 12/17/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Sam Moffitt
Yao Bao tells us at the beginning that he has not spoken in 127 days, then he proceeds to tell us why. The main reason being, after his girlfriend dumps him for a rich man he got drunk and tried to eat the glass. Somehow everyone in Beijing knows about this. He is also just depressed about life in general and most of his friends appear to be depressed as well. Among others we meet the members of a Chinese rock band, (not bad by the way), a transvestite, a cop on the take and several other denizens of the New China.
This is an excellent film and it shows how much things have changed in mainland China. This film could be set in Hong Kong, or Rome or Seattle, Washington for that matter. There is almost nothing traditionally “Chinese” about Beijing Flickers. But there is much about the human condition.
Yao Bao tells us at the beginning that he has not spoken in 127 days, then he proceeds to tell us why. The main reason being, after his girlfriend dumps him for a rich man he got drunk and tried to eat the glass. Somehow everyone in Beijing knows about this. He is also just depressed about life in general and most of his friends appear to be depressed as well. Among others we meet the members of a Chinese rock band, (not bad by the way), a transvestite, a cop on the take and several other denizens of the New China.
This is an excellent film and it shows how much things have changed in mainland China. This film could be set in Hong Kong, or Rome or Seattle, Washington for that matter. There is almost nothing traditionally “Chinese” about Beijing Flickers. But there is much about the human condition.
- 11/18/2013
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Beijing Flickers
Written and directed by Zhang Yuan
China, 2012
Beijing Flickers is a compelling, loosely-plotted portrait of young outcasts in the titular city, each struggling to find their own place and independence in the face of escalating setbacks both personal and economic. Lead San Bao (Duan Bowen) spends much of the film mute, his first word after hundreds of days taking place in the opening sequence. Zhang Yuan’s narrative takes us back to the beginning of San Bao’s woes, which include the departure of his beloved dog, being made unemployable, and his girlfriend dumping him for a wealthy businessman.
In a drunken state one night, he eats a glass in a bar, resulting in a lacerated mouth; this bar is where You Zi (Li Xinyun) plays concerts with the local indie rock band she fronts. San Bao is temporarily hospitalised, sharing a room with Xioa Shi (Shi Shi...
Written and directed by Zhang Yuan
China, 2012
Beijing Flickers is a compelling, loosely-plotted portrait of young outcasts in the titular city, each struggling to find their own place and independence in the face of escalating setbacks both personal and economic. Lead San Bao (Duan Bowen) spends much of the film mute, his first word after hundreds of days taking place in the opening sequence. Zhang Yuan’s narrative takes us back to the beginning of San Bao’s woes, which include the departure of his beloved dog, being made unemployable, and his girlfriend dumping him for a wealthy businessman.
In a drunken state one night, he eats a glass in a bar, resulting in a lacerated mouth; this bar is where You Zi (Li Xinyun) plays concerts with the local indie rock band she fronts. San Bao is temporarily hospitalised, sharing a room with Xioa Shi (Shi Shi...
- 6/23/2013
- by Josh Slater-Williams
- SoundOnSight
"A visually playful biopic on Mexico's Ed Wood." -Variety
The accolades continue to roll in as Global Lens 2013 puts a spotlight on The Fantastic Wrld of Juan Orol, which recently played at the San Diego Latino Film Festival.
The story: Move over Ed Wood! Mexico's half-forgotten B-movie master, "involuntary surrealist" Juan Orol, receives a pitch-perfect tribute in this irresistible love letter to a self-made man of showbiz, whose career spanned nearly sixty films. In a glorious black-and-white flashback mingling movie-tainted memories of his Galician childhood, forced exile to Cuba and arrival in Mexico. The intrepid "Juanito" pursues failed careers as baseball player, boxer, bullfighter and gangster before landing in the movies-where failure kind of works for him. As Orol, Roberto Sosa exudes droll underdog charm, anchoring a fast-moving comedy and a homage to a golden age of cinema.
"A clever camp homage to Orol, this film playfully explores the filmmaker's cult legacy, including visuals that deftly evoke the vintage stock of bygone eras, and the budget aesthetic of its subject." -AFI Silver
Through Global Lens, fans are invited to bring this film to local theaters or community centers. Preview this and the rest of the Global Lens 2013 lineup now on Festival Scope and email bookings [at] globalfilm.org.
Other Global Lens 2013 films now available for booking:
About 111 Girls (Darbare 111 Dokhtar), dir. Nahid Ghobadi and Bijan Bijan Zamanpira, Iraq, 2012, 79 minutes
An Iranian state official, his driver and a young guide race across a troubled but magnificent landscape to stop 111 young Kurdish women from committing suicide in protest against conditions that have left them spinsters. Official Selection, 2012 Busan Iff.
Beijing FlICKERS (You-zhong), dir. Zhang Yuan, China, 2012, 96 minutes
A young man left behind by Beijing's fabulous new wealth experiences moments of euphoria amid despair as he roams the city with other misfit dreamers in this darkly funny, gorgeously gritty portrait of disaffected youth. Official Selection, 2012 Toronto Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Busan.
Cairo 678, dir. Mohamed Diab, Egypt, 2010, 100 minutes
Three Cairene women from different backgrounds warily unite to combat the sexual harassment that has impacted each of their lives-and become a citywide plague-but their unconventional response provokes a dogged police hunt. Official Selection, 2011 New Directors/New Films; Official Selection, 2011 Seattle Iff; Muhr Arab Feature Best Actress and Best Actor, 2010 Dubai Iff.
The Fantastic World Of Juan Orol (El FANÁSTICO Mundo De Juan Orol) , dir. Sebastían del Amo, Mexico, 2012, 90 minutes
Move over Ed Wood! The story of Mexico's half-forgotten B-movie master, "involuntary surrealist" Juan Orol, receives a pitch-perfect tribute in this deft, irresistible love letter to life, the movies and a self-made man of showbiz. Best First Feature Film, 2012 Guadalajara Iff.
Life Kills Me (La Vida Me Mata), dir. Sebastían Silva, Chile, 2007, 92 minutes
Death come wrapped in a mutual embrace, absurd and poignant at once, in celebrated director Sebastián Silva's debut film about the unlikely friendship between a grieving, young cinematographer and a morbidly obsessed drifter. Best First Feature Film, 2008 International Latino Ff; Best Chilean Film of 2007, Chilean Art Critics Circle.
Modest Reception (Paziraie Sadeh), dir. Mani Haghighi, Iran, 2012, 100 minutes
Two sibling-sophisticates from Tehran travel the mountainous northern countryside, maniacally pushing bags of money on locals-a hilarious and alarming exercise that unfurls with unexpected force amid subtle themes of power and corruption. Netpac Prize, 2012 Berlin Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Chicago Iff.
The Parade (Parada), dir. Srdjan Dragojevic, Serbia, 2011, 115 minutes
In exchange for some wedding-planning expertise, a macho Serbian crime boss recruits a ragtag group of Balkan war-buddies to provide protection for a Pride march in this rollicking yet poignant comedy inspired by real events. Panorama Audience Award, 2012 Berlin Iff; Fipresci Serbia Award for Best Serbian Film 2011.
Shyamal Uncle Turns Off The Lights, dir. Suman Ghosh, India, 2012, 65 minutes
An 80-year-old Kolkata retiree is determined to get the streetlights turned off after sunrise, but finding someone to take him seriously proves a battle against an indifferent bureaucracy and a complacent status quo. Official Selection, 2012 Busan Iff.
Southwest (Sudoeste) dir. Eduardo Nunes, Brazil, 2011, 128 minutes
A young woman gives birth on her deathbed to a child who, spirited away to a remote lakeside village, lives her lifetime in a single day, in this hauntingly dreamlike tale of incommensurable life. Special Jury Prize, Fipresci Best Latin American Film and Best Photography, 2011 Rio Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Iff Rotterdam.
Student, dir. Darezhan Omirbayev, Kazakhstan, 2012, 90 minutes
A solitary philosophy student commits a calculated violent crime against the backdrop of Kazakhstan's growing inequality, institutional corruption and a ruthless ethic of eat-or-be-eaten in this broodingly contemporary adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Un Certain Regard, 2012 Cannes Ff; Official Selection, 2012 Toronto Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Venice If.
The Global Lens film series is an annual, curated program of narrative feature films from Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Films from the series are screened in more than fifty cities nationwide, are featured exclusively on Virgin America airlines, and include top festival picks and official submissions to the Oscars. All proceeds received from Global Lens are reinvested in the Global Film Initiative's Granting Program, and other philanthropic programs of the Initiative.
About The Global Film Initiative
The Global Film Initiative was founded in 2002 to create global understanding, empathy and connectivity through film. Since its establishment, the Initiative has supported hundreds of filmmakers with grants and networking opportunities, and has presented its signature film series, Global Lens, in the U.S. and select international locations via a diverse network of artistic, educational, cultural and diplomatic partners. For more information about the Global Lens film series and Global Film Initiative programs, readers are invited to http://globalfilm.org/programs.htm
Change the Way You See the World.
The Global Film Initiative is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. All proceeds from the Global Lens film series support international filmmaker grants, educational programming and resources, touring film exhibitions and other philanthropic initiatives and programs sponsored by the Global Film Initiative.
The accolades continue to roll in as Global Lens 2013 puts a spotlight on The Fantastic Wrld of Juan Orol, which recently played at the San Diego Latino Film Festival.
The story: Move over Ed Wood! Mexico's half-forgotten B-movie master, "involuntary surrealist" Juan Orol, receives a pitch-perfect tribute in this irresistible love letter to a self-made man of showbiz, whose career spanned nearly sixty films. In a glorious black-and-white flashback mingling movie-tainted memories of his Galician childhood, forced exile to Cuba and arrival in Mexico. The intrepid "Juanito" pursues failed careers as baseball player, boxer, bullfighter and gangster before landing in the movies-where failure kind of works for him. As Orol, Roberto Sosa exudes droll underdog charm, anchoring a fast-moving comedy and a homage to a golden age of cinema.
"A clever camp homage to Orol, this film playfully explores the filmmaker's cult legacy, including visuals that deftly evoke the vintage stock of bygone eras, and the budget aesthetic of its subject." -AFI Silver
Through Global Lens, fans are invited to bring this film to local theaters or community centers. Preview this and the rest of the Global Lens 2013 lineup now on Festival Scope and email bookings [at] globalfilm.org.
Other Global Lens 2013 films now available for booking:
About 111 Girls (Darbare 111 Dokhtar), dir. Nahid Ghobadi and Bijan Bijan Zamanpira, Iraq, 2012, 79 minutes
An Iranian state official, his driver and a young guide race across a troubled but magnificent landscape to stop 111 young Kurdish women from committing suicide in protest against conditions that have left them spinsters. Official Selection, 2012 Busan Iff.
Beijing FlICKERS (You-zhong), dir. Zhang Yuan, China, 2012, 96 minutes
A young man left behind by Beijing's fabulous new wealth experiences moments of euphoria amid despair as he roams the city with other misfit dreamers in this darkly funny, gorgeously gritty portrait of disaffected youth. Official Selection, 2012 Toronto Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Busan.
Cairo 678, dir. Mohamed Diab, Egypt, 2010, 100 minutes
Three Cairene women from different backgrounds warily unite to combat the sexual harassment that has impacted each of their lives-and become a citywide plague-but their unconventional response provokes a dogged police hunt. Official Selection, 2011 New Directors/New Films; Official Selection, 2011 Seattle Iff; Muhr Arab Feature Best Actress and Best Actor, 2010 Dubai Iff.
The Fantastic World Of Juan Orol (El FANÁSTICO Mundo De Juan Orol) , dir. Sebastían del Amo, Mexico, 2012, 90 minutes
Move over Ed Wood! The story of Mexico's half-forgotten B-movie master, "involuntary surrealist" Juan Orol, receives a pitch-perfect tribute in this deft, irresistible love letter to life, the movies and a self-made man of showbiz. Best First Feature Film, 2012 Guadalajara Iff.
Life Kills Me (La Vida Me Mata), dir. Sebastían Silva, Chile, 2007, 92 minutes
Death come wrapped in a mutual embrace, absurd and poignant at once, in celebrated director Sebastián Silva's debut film about the unlikely friendship between a grieving, young cinematographer and a morbidly obsessed drifter. Best First Feature Film, 2008 International Latino Ff; Best Chilean Film of 2007, Chilean Art Critics Circle.
Modest Reception (Paziraie Sadeh), dir. Mani Haghighi, Iran, 2012, 100 minutes
Two sibling-sophisticates from Tehran travel the mountainous northern countryside, maniacally pushing bags of money on locals-a hilarious and alarming exercise that unfurls with unexpected force amid subtle themes of power and corruption. Netpac Prize, 2012 Berlin Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Chicago Iff.
The Parade (Parada), dir. Srdjan Dragojevic, Serbia, 2011, 115 minutes
In exchange for some wedding-planning expertise, a macho Serbian crime boss recruits a ragtag group of Balkan war-buddies to provide protection for a Pride march in this rollicking yet poignant comedy inspired by real events. Panorama Audience Award, 2012 Berlin Iff; Fipresci Serbia Award for Best Serbian Film 2011.
Shyamal Uncle Turns Off The Lights, dir. Suman Ghosh, India, 2012, 65 minutes
An 80-year-old Kolkata retiree is determined to get the streetlights turned off after sunrise, but finding someone to take him seriously proves a battle against an indifferent bureaucracy and a complacent status quo. Official Selection, 2012 Busan Iff.
Southwest (Sudoeste) dir. Eduardo Nunes, Brazil, 2011, 128 minutes
A young woman gives birth on her deathbed to a child who, spirited away to a remote lakeside village, lives her lifetime in a single day, in this hauntingly dreamlike tale of incommensurable life. Special Jury Prize, Fipresci Best Latin American Film and Best Photography, 2011 Rio Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Iff Rotterdam.
Student, dir. Darezhan Omirbayev, Kazakhstan, 2012, 90 minutes
A solitary philosophy student commits a calculated violent crime against the backdrop of Kazakhstan's growing inequality, institutional corruption and a ruthless ethic of eat-or-be-eaten in this broodingly contemporary adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Un Certain Regard, 2012 Cannes Ff; Official Selection, 2012 Toronto Iff; Official Selection, 2012 Venice If.
The Global Lens film series is an annual, curated program of narrative feature films from Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Films from the series are screened in more than fifty cities nationwide, are featured exclusively on Virgin America airlines, and include top festival picks and official submissions to the Oscars. All proceeds received from Global Lens are reinvested in the Global Film Initiative's Granting Program, and other philanthropic programs of the Initiative.
About The Global Film Initiative
The Global Film Initiative was founded in 2002 to create global understanding, empathy and connectivity through film. Since its establishment, the Initiative has supported hundreds of filmmakers with grants and networking opportunities, and has presented its signature film series, Global Lens, in the U.S. and select international locations via a diverse network of artistic, educational, cultural and diplomatic partners. For more information about the Global Lens film series and Global Film Initiative programs, readers are invited to http://globalfilm.org/programs.htm
Change the Way You See the World.
The Global Film Initiative is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. All proceeds from the Global Lens film series support international filmmaker grants, educational programming and resources, touring film exhibitions and other philanthropic initiatives and programs sponsored by the Global Film Initiative.
- 3/22/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Beijing Flickers (dir. Zhang Yuan) featured in Global Lens 2013, follows the travails of a poor, despairing, but stubbornly proud, young man named San Bao (played by actor Duan Bowen) and his circle of 20-something bohemians and dreamers. Their stories are set against a backdrop of a burgeoning, materialistic, and brutally unequal city, yet one with an almost ethereal magic to it.
The film blends once more a highly cinematic style with a documentary-like devotion to the lives and stories conveyed onscreen. Indeed, the film itself grew out of Zhang's 2010 photography exhibition, Unspoiled Brats, commissioned by Beijing's Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, in which he profiled the images and stories of 10 Beijing 20-something nonconformists. Zhang's cameo in the film-- as a wealthy, inebriated restaurant patron who gratefully offers his support to the young chauffeur who has seen him safely home--acknowledges and even gently sends up his own success relative to this younger generation while firmly underscoring his role as a sympathetic "big brother."
Through a combination of cinematic theatricality and close-to-the-ground realism, Beijing Flickers registers the ongoing tumult of change in contemporary China while giving voice to today's new generation of restless, creative seekers. The film received its U.S. premiere on January 10 at New York's Museum of Modern Art, where it led off the Global Film Initiative's 2013 Global Lens series. The film recently opened in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, leading off the premiere of the Global Film Initiative's Global Lens 2013 film series. A few hours prior to the screening, Zhang Yuan sat at a table in a small room on an upper floor of the Museum of Modern Art's education department.
Facing a plate glass window that looked out on the museum courtyard and the late-afternoon Manhattan skyline, Zhang spoke about his new film and the hopes and surprises it held for him two decades after Beijing Bastards had offered a seminal portrait of his own outsider generation. Assisting with the interview was translator Vincent (Tzu-Wen) Cheng.
Rob Avila: Beijing Flickers is beautifully and also meticulously shot. You studied cinematography as a student at the Beijing Film Academy. Was it images that first attracted you to filmmaking, and are images how a film begins for you? Or is it more often an idea you have that you then translate into a visual language?
Zhang Yuan: Actually, around six years old, I somehow got drawn into painting quite a bit. At that time, I got sick quite often and I couldn't go to school, so I would stay around the house, and I picked up painting because of that. That was the initiation for me, in terms of this visual component. After that, when I was maybe 15 or 16 years old-i didn't see myself as a painter in the future, however, when I was in my teenage years I started to pick up some very interesting writings and then moved from literature to films. And eventually I went into the Film Academy for cinematography.
Ra: I also mention cinematography because the new film sets out to, among other things, capture the face of Beijing today--a face that's changed so much since Beijing Bastards and continues constantly changing so much. How did you strategize to capture this on the screen?
Zy: I was not only the director, but I also served as a director of cinematography for this particular film. The reason for that was that I wanted to have full control of the visual component. For this film, I'm definitely trying to reflect, in a very realistic way, what's going on right now in China, in Beijing especially. So everything's on location.
The sites selected were usually places that I'm very familiar with. Places I've been to, places that have some kind of emotional significance to me--including everything from the different bars to the arrangement of furniture--and that somehow play out the sense of here and now in Beijing.
Ra: Moving from the face of the city to your characters, it seems that they too share a mixture of beauty and resilience as well as a feeling of dislocation or disorder. They are as much remade as remaking themselves (one even goes in for facelifts). Their tumultuousness reflects, and is reflected in, the city itself.
I wonder how familiar or how different you found those characters compared to your own generation, the generation of Beijing Bastards and the 1990s? Did you feel an immediate kinship with them or were there things that surprised you about them?
Zy: This is a very good question, because when I first started this project I thought that I understood this new generation of youth. Before I did this film I put together the photography exhibition at the Ullens Center [for Contemporary Art] in Beijing. For this particular exhibition, I had a chance to interact with about 200-plus young participants, and not only through interviews. Mostly--before I would even ask them questions--they would just sit down and tell me stories about their lives. So I got to listen to a lot of fascinating stories.
And I realized after all these interviews and all these interactions with the 200-plus young people, that I was wrong about my judgment, my assessment of this new generation. I thought that since they grew up in a very different environment--they were born after 1980, after Deng Xiaoping and after the reforms so they grew up in a very different environment than our generation, which was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution and didn't have outlets for culture, for film, for different forms of expression--so I assumed that they must be very happy, and have a lot of creative outlets for expression and just culturally a lot of options.
But I realized that I was wrong, because they also had a lot of sad stories to share. It's very interesting. At first I really thought that they would probably be not as quote-unquote unhappy as we were, but in fact they had other reasons to be unhappy.
Ra: The challenges they face are distinct from the ones of your generation, in terms of seeking livelihoods and creative expression. You can glean much from the film, of course, but what specifically are the challenges that they face as you see it?
Zy: I think one of the major differences I observed through the interviews and interactions I had with them was--i don't know if this was coincidence or not--that almost 80 or 90 percent of them had parents who were divorced.
As a result, they left home quite early, from other provinces and other cities to Beijing, when they were still very young. So I do think that, on some level, there are a lot of similarities among New York, Beijing, Tokyo, for example. Although, categorically, it's not exactly capitalism in Beijing, but in fact it's actually the same as Tokyo and New York, this idea of suddenly becoming a mega-city. During my time, there were only about eight or nine million people in Beijing; now you have [over 20 million].
I think just the sheer numbers of people in the same space, trying to survive, that's where the pressures and where the heartaches are from.
Ra: How is the relative opening of China to the rest of the world, and the even more recent ability of masses of people to travel abroad, changing this generation? Is that a big factor in the desires and self-image of the generation you portray in your film?
Zy: I think that's also one of the reasons why I was involved not only in this film but also in this art project with Ullens. I do think that when people think about China they tend to think about the growth of the annual Gdp, or they tend to think about the mega-skyscrapers and buildings, and the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games-and all these superficial things. But to me, it's more important to think about what's beneath that surface and really going on in people's lives. What kind of real impact has it had on people's lives, all this superficial growth and progress?
For me, I take it almost like a mission to find something that's close to reality, what's really going on. Although I of course know the stories that I put together in the film are so-called fictional, to me these are real stories I want to put together in a so-called fiction film. I want to make sure that all the stories that I put in my films are real stories. And in fact these are the stories that I heard from the people I interacted with and the people I interviewed through this particular art project that I did.
I'm a filmmaker; I'm not an economist or a sociologist. The only way for me to do this is to use these real stories to document, to record, and to witness what's really going on through the economic transformation in China.
Ra: We're still a few hours away from the film's U.S. debut, but I wonder what the response was from audiences in Toronto. What is your sense of how the film is being received over here? Do people relate to the kinds of stories and experiences described in the film?
Zy: In general, the reaction was very positive. A lot of people did mention that they welcomed the opportunity to see a different side of Beijing, something that they hadn't seen before or had a chance to see before. And of course people are very curious about whether these stories are real or entirely made up. To answer that question of whether these stories are real stories or fictional stories, I think that pointed to the biggest challenge for me in this particular film. My intention is to get as close to reality as possible. As I mentioned, I already had all the photographs for the exhibition, I had all the interviews that I had one, I had all these raw materials.
The next thing was to think about how am I going to put this all together to get very close to the truth and to the reality. I had this method or process to put things together, similar to how I put together East Palace, West Palace, how I put together Beijing Bastards or Seventeen Years. It's almost like documentary, but it's a feature film with a documentary style to it.
To me, this is a continuation of that, but I definitely think this was the biggest challenge so far, that I have to somehow find a way to make every component work together, in a very realistic way, in a very documentary way.
Ra: As the film prepares to head across the United States as part of Global Lens, I wanted to ask you about the relationship between China and the U.S. specifically.
You've been making films for two decades. What does that mean in the context of how you perceive the relationship between China and the U.S. evolving in that time, in the time you have been a filmmaker. What is your perspective on the nature of this relationship and how it's changed since your films have been showing here?
Zy: I definitely think that in terms of films, in terms of culture, this type of exchange is very important and it's also ongoing. If you look back on how people started to have access to a lot of films from Chinese directors, including Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke, also me, and other directors, that gave audiences some sense of what this particular place is about.
They learned something from the films that they watch.
If you take a look at the Hollywood film industry, there are about 32 Hollywood films in China every year. They take up more than half of the film market there. On some level the exchange is still ongoing, especially this type of cultural exchange.
Personally, I learned about the United States through films, at first, and then through literature, novels, and through real stories you get through news and other outlets. And the more you learn through all these different media, the more you realize that human nature is the same everywhere, that there's some kind of universality to it, that we're essentially the same on many different levels.
Ra: Can you talk a little about casting Beijing Flickers? Did you have people in mind as you put the script together, or was in some cases a challenge to find the right actor for a part?
Zy: When we started the script there were definitely certain parts where I already had someone in mind for some roles. There were also people we had to find after we finished the script, for example, the character Xioa Shi, who is the cross-dresser. We actually have a prototype, which is the person who actually shared the story with us. We tried to see if it would work with him playing this role himself. But there was just something that was not quite right about the way he expressed himself in front of the camera, so we needed to find someone to play the role but still keep the sense of reality and truthfulness. That was probably one of the more challenging casting choices that I had to make, to find someone to play that role when in fact we already had the prototype himself try this character.
Ra: He's a fascinating character. He comes across as both very youthful and also somehow very old-souled. There's a wonderful duality in general to that character, and he's wonderfully embodied by the actor. Where did you end up finding the actor?
Zy: I do think that casting is definitely important. If you have the right cast, you don't need to do a lot, just a few clues, a little bit of suggestion, and they will find a way. For this particular role of Xioa Shi, [the actor Shi Shi] is not professionally trained as an actor. But he is a model, and he is also a dancer, so he had the quality to play this role and we saw that in him. It took a little bit of guidance, but then he found a way to embody this particular character.
Ra: What is the most immediate, or satisfying aspect of the process of filmmaking to you?
Zy: To me, the most rewarding part of this whole process is that I do actualize and fulfill the plans that I have for this film, which is to somehow get as close to the reality as possible. The atmosphere, the mood that I created, the inter-personal relationships that the characters have, the quality of how they express that-i do think that all captures the realness, the sense of reality that I wanted to somehow present in the film. That's probably the most rewarding part, to see that actually happen.
Rob Avila is a San Francisco-based writer, and film and stage critic. He is a regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among other publications, and has worked with the Global Film Initiative on a range of projects and programs, including Global Lens educational resources, filmmaker interviews and the Initiative's Granting Program. ...
The film blends once more a highly cinematic style with a documentary-like devotion to the lives and stories conveyed onscreen. Indeed, the film itself grew out of Zhang's 2010 photography exhibition, Unspoiled Brats, commissioned by Beijing's Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, in which he profiled the images and stories of 10 Beijing 20-something nonconformists. Zhang's cameo in the film-- as a wealthy, inebriated restaurant patron who gratefully offers his support to the young chauffeur who has seen him safely home--acknowledges and even gently sends up his own success relative to this younger generation while firmly underscoring his role as a sympathetic "big brother."
Through a combination of cinematic theatricality and close-to-the-ground realism, Beijing Flickers registers the ongoing tumult of change in contemporary China while giving voice to today's new generation of restless, creative seekers. The film received its U.S. premiere on January 10 at New York's Museum of Modern Art, where it led off the Global Film Initiative's 2013 Global Lens series. The film recently opened in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, leading off the premiere of the Global Film Initiative's Global Lens 2013 film series. A few hours prior to the screening, Zhang Yuan sat at a table in a small room on an upper floor of the Museum of Modern Art's education department.
Facing a plate glass window that looked out on the museum courtyard and the late-afternoon Manhattan skyline, Zhang spoke about his new film and the hopes and surprises it held for him two decades after Beijing Bastards had offered a seminal portrait of his own outsider generation. Assisting with the interview was translator Vincent (Tzu-Wen) Cheng.
Rob Avila: Beijing Flickers is beautifully and also meticulously shot. You studied cinematography as a student at the Beijing Film Academy. Was it images that first attracted you to filmmaking, and are images how a film begins for you? Or is it more often an idea you have that you then translate into a visual language?
Zhang Yuan: Actually, around six years old, I somehow got drawn into painting quite a bit. At that time, I got sick quite often and I couldn't go to school, so I would stay around the house, and I picked up painting because of that. That was the initiation for me, in terms of this visual component. After that, when I was maybe 15 or 16 years old-i didn't see myself as a painter in the future, however, when I was in my teenage years I started to pick up some very interesting writings and then moved from literature to films. And eventually I went into the Film Academy for cinematography.
Ra: I also mention cinematography because the new film sets out to, among other things, capture the face of Beijing today--a face that's changed so much since Beijing Bastards and continues constantly changing so much. How did you strategize to capture this on the screen?
Zy: I was not only the director, but I also served as a director of cinematography for this particular film. The reason for that was that I wanted to have full control of the visual component. For this film, I'm definitely trying to reflect, in a very realistic way, what's going on right now in China, in Beijing especially. So everything's on location.
The sites selected were usually places that I'm very familiar with. Places I've been to, places that have some kind of emotional significance to me--including everything from the different bars to the arrangement of furniture--and that somehow play out the sense of here and now in Beijing.
Ra: Moving from the face of the city to your characters, it seems that they too share a mixture of beauty and resilience as well as a feeling of dislocation or disorder. They are as much remade as remaking themselves (one even goes in for facelifts). Their tumultuousness reflects, and is reflected in, the city itself.
I wonder how familiar or how different you found those characters compared to your own generation, the generation of Beijing Bastards and the 1990s? Did you feel an immediate kinship with them or were there things that surprised you about them?
Zy: This is a very good question, because when I first started this project I thought that I understood this new generation of youth. Before I did this film I put together the photography exhibition at the Ullens Center [for Contemporary Art] in Beijing. For this particular exhibition, I had a chance to interact with about 200-plus young participants, and not only through interviews. Mostly--before I would even ask them questions--they would just sit down and tell me stories about their lives. So I got to listen to a lot of fascinating stories.
And I realized after all these interviews and all these interactions with the 200-plus young people, that I was wrong about my judgment, my assessment of this new generation. I thought that since they grew up in a very different environment--they were born after 1980, after Deng Xiaoping and after the reforms so they grew up in a very different environment than our generation, which was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution and didn't have outlets for culture, for film, for different forms of expression--so I assumed that they must be very happy, and have a lot of creative outlets for expression and just culturally a lot of options.
But I realized that I was wrong, because they also had a lot of sad stories to share. It's very interesting. At first I really thought that they would probably be not as quote-unquote unhappy as we were, but in fact they had other reasons to be unhappy.
Ra: The challenges they face are distinct from the ones of your generation, in terms of seeking livelihoods and creative expression. You can glean much from the film, of course, but what specifically are the challenges that they face as you see it?
Zy: I think one of the major differences I observed through the interviews and interactions I had with them was--i don't know if this was coincidence or not--that almost 80 or 90 percent of them had parents who were divorced.
As a result, they left home quite early, from other provinces and other cities to Beijing, when they were still very young. So I do think that, on some level, there are a lot of similarities among New York, Beijing, Tokyo, for example. Although, categorically, it's not exactly capitalism in Beijing, but in fact it's actually the same as Tokyo and New York, this idea of suddenly becoming a mega-city. During my time, there were only about eight or nine million people in Beijing; now you have [over 20 million].
I think just the sheer numbers of people in the same space, trying to survive, that's where the pressures and where the heartaches are from.
Ra: How is the relative opening of China to the rest of the world, and the even more recent ability of masses of people to travel abroad, changing this generation? Is that a big factor in the desires and self-image of the generation you portray in your film?
Zy: I think that's also one of the reasons why I was involved not only in this film but also in this art project with Ullens. I do think that when people think about China they tend to think about the growth of the annual Gdp, or they tend to think about the mega-skyscrapers and buildings, and the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games-and all these superficial things. But to me, it's more important to think about what's beneath that surface and really going on in people's lives. What kind of real impact has it had on people's lives, all this superficial growth and progress?
For me, I take it almost like a mission to find something that's close to reality, what's really going on. Although I of course know the stories that I put together in the film are so-called fictional, to me these are real stories I want to put together in a so-called fiction film. I want to make sure that all the stories that I put in my films are real stories. And in fact these are the stories that I heard from the people I interacted with and the people I interviewed through this particular art project that I did.
I'm a filmmaker; I'm not an economist or a sociologist. The only way for me to do this is to use these real stories to document, to record, and to witness what's really going on through the economic transformation in China.
Ra: We're still a few hours away from the film's U.S. debut, but I wonder what the response was from audiences in Toronto. What is your sense of how the film is being received over here? Do people relate to the kinds of stories and experiences described in the film?
Zy: In general, the reaction was very positive. A lot of people did mention that they welcomed the opportunity to see a different side of Beijing, something that they hadn't seen before or had a chance to see before. And of course people are very curious about whether these stories are real or entirely made up. To answer that question of whether these stories are real stories or fictional stories, I think that pointed to the biggest challenge for me in this particular film. My intention is to get as close to reality as possible. As I mentioned, I already had all the photographs for the exhibition, I had all the interviews that I had one, I had all these raw materials.
The next thing was to think about how am I going to put this all together to get very close to the truth and to the reality. I had this method or process to put things together, similar to how I put together East Palace, West Palace, how I put together Beijing Bastards or Seventeen Years. It's almost like documentary, but it's a feature film with a documentary style to it.
To me, this is a continuation of that, but I definitely think this was the biggest challenge so far, that I have to somehow find a way to make every component work together, in a very realistic way, in a very documentary way.
Ra: As the film prepares to head across the United States as part of Global Lens, I wanted to ask you about the relationship between China and the U.S. specifically.
You've been making films for two decades. What does that mean in the context of how you perceive the relationship between China and the U.S. evolving in that time, in the time you have been a filmmaker. What is your perspective on the nature of this relationship and how it's changed since your films have been showing here?
Zy: I definitely think that in terms of films, in terms of culture, this type of exchange is very important and it's also ongoing. If you look back on how people started to have access to a lot of films from Chinese directors, including Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke, also me, and other directors, that gave audiences some sense of what this particular place is about.
They learned something from the films that they watch.
If you take a look at the Hollywood film industry, there are about 32 Hollywood films in China every year. They take up more than half of the film market there. On some level the exchange is still ongoing, especially this type of cultural exchange.
Personally, I learned about the United States through films, at first, and then through literature, novels, and through real stories you get through news and other outlets. And the more you learn through all these different media, the more you realize that human nature is the same everywhere, that there's some kind of universality to it, that we're essentially the same on many different levels.
Ra: Can you talk a little about casting Beijing Flickers? Did you have people in mind as you put the script together, or was in some cases a challenge to find the right actor for a part?
Zy: When we started the script there were definitely certain parts where I already had someone in mind for some roles. There were also people we had to find after we finished the script, for example, the character Xioa Shi, who is the cross-dresser. We actually have a prototype, which is the person who actually shared the story with us. We tried to see if it would work with him playing this role himself. But there was just something that was not quite right about the way he expressed himself in front of the camera, so we needed to find someone to play the role but still keep the sense of reality and truthfulness. That was probably one of the more challenging casting choices that I had to make, to find someone to play that role when in fact we already had the prototype himself try this character.
Ra: He's a fascinating character. He comes across as both very youthful and also somehow very old-souled. There's a wonderful duality in general to that character, and he's wonderfully embodied by the actor. Where did you end up finding the actor?
Zy: I do think that casting is definitely important. If you have the right cast, you don't need to do a lot, just a few clues, a little bit of suggestion, and they will find a way. For this particular role of Xioa Shi, [the actor Shi Shi] is not professionally trained as an actor. But he is a model, and he is also a dancer, so he had the quality to play this role and we saw that in him. It took a little bit of guidance, but then he found a way to embody this particular character.
Ra: What is the most immediate, or satisfying aspect of the process of filmmaking to you?
Zy: To me, the most rewarding part of this whole process is that I do actualize and fulfill the plans that I have for this film, which is to somehow get as close to the reality as possible. The atmosphere, the mood that I created, the inter-personal relationships that the characters have, the quality of how they express that-i do think that all captures the realness, the sense of reality that I wanted to somehow present in the film. That's probably the most rewarding part, to see that actually happen.
Rob Avila is a San Francisco-based writer, and film and stage critic. He is a regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among other publications, and has worked with the Global Film Initiative on a range of projects and programs, including Global Lens educational resources, filmmaker interviews and the Initiative's Granting Program. ...
- 2/26/2013
- by Rob Avila
- Sydney's Buzz
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