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Cultural Review Cultural Review costs.1 For foreign viewers, this is not China sounds of a dog barking in the distance as economic miracle, confidently striding and boots crunching on dirt, the camera into modernity. This is another China— tracks the line of men as they move Decency as Redemptive: beyond the coastal cities dotted with Star- through the “safety” check before being A Review of Li Yang’s Blind Shaft bucks, McDonalds, shining skyscrapers handed their equipment. Song, Tang and a BY SHARON HOM and the cyberspace inhabited by 80 million third man move into a frame and are shar- Internet users wired to the world. Although ing a cigarette. Men emerge out of the dark Blind Shaft (2003, 92 mins.) written, pro- the film garnered a host of prestigious mine pit and Song, Tang and the third man duced and directed by Li Yang. Adapted from international awards following its release,2 replace them and begin their descent. The the novel “Sacred Wood” by Liu Qingbang. it may be some time before it can be pub- camera suddenly shifts perspective and Director of Photography: Liu Yonghong. Prin- licly shown inside China. the viewer is now watching the square of cipal cast: Song (Li Yixiang), Tang (Wang The narrative centers on two itinerant light at the top of the mine opening get Shuangbao), Yuan (Wang Baoqiang). mine workers, Song Jinming and Tang smaller and smaller as the title credit China/Germany/Hong Kong. In Mandarin Zhaoyang, who murder fellow-workers in a appears—Mang Jing—Blind Shaft—in Chinese with English subtitles. A Kino Inter- scam to extort money from mine owners. large, bold red characters. national Release. Facing financial pressures to support their The world we have entered is almost families, willing to do anything to survive, pitch black, with only the lights of the min- In the past twenty years, China has under- these two men are cynical guides across a ers’ hardhats eerily lighting faces, their gone rapid economic changes, marked by devastated human landscape. The film bodies disappearing into the darkness. The privatization and market reforms. Shot opens in silence and complete blackness, men address each other as “brother” and entirely in China, documentary filmmaker Li with a few production credits in red Chinese are engaged in light banter during a rest Yang’s first feature, Blind Shaft, is an characters. Then the opening shot of men break when Tang asks the third man, “Are unblinking look at the underside of these emerging out of a doorway stepping into the you homesick?” There is a dangerous edge reforms in terms of human suffering and blue light of morning. Against the spare in his voice. The man does not seem to Tang Zhaoyang and Song Jinming confer over their future. Photo: Kino International hear it. Tang continues, “Hey, want to go Song argues the boy cannot die a virgin; groups discarded in the reform calculus. home? I’ll send you back home.” The man the boy cannot die without his first drink. Standing around in the cold winter light 2004 replies, “You wouldn’t trick me, would you?” And yet, there is a glimmer of hope: desperate for work, they squat in public .1, Tang replies, moving closer, “Why would I?” despite Song’s gruff rebuffs, the boy is squares with signs selling their skills, pull NO There is the sound of an iron pickaxe drag- slowly humanized in his eyes through his johns into prostitution parlors or wait in line ging across the mine bottom and the man sharing of a family photo, his focus on mak- far from home to wire their hard-earned is hit from behind and falls forward. Back ing enough money to pay for his little sis- money back to their families. This is the on the surface, an alarm is sounded as ter’s school tuition, his own aspirations to lived reality today for the vast majority of men run across to the opening where a go back to school and his determination to Chinese struggling to survive by selling shaft slide has been triggered below. The find his missing father. The resemblance of their bodies, labor and even their souls. show of false grief for one’s dead “relative,” the boy’s father in the photo with the last In an interview in Hong Kong, Li Yang the negotiations for compensation, the man Tang and Song murdered, the possibil- disclosed that he shot five different end- RIGHTS FORUM mine boss’s calculations over whether to ity that the boy’s murder would end his fam- ings in hopes that one might be cleared by kill the two of them or pay up and how ily line and Song’s clear concern for his own the censors. But Chinese censors will prob- CHINA much, now begin in earnest. The boss son back home—all of these also begin ably fear the harsh spotlight focused on offers Tang 30,000 yuan ($4,000) because nagging at Song’s conscience. When Yuan rampant corruption and greed, and the 73 that is cheaper than the hefty cut his police Fengming asks to borrow some money from implicit criticism of the authorities. That chief pals would demand if the two men Song to give to a young begger raising would be a pity, because the ending of were killed. Tang takes the money, and as money for his school tuition in the market, China’s reform story has yet to be written. they move on to their next scam he throws Song also throws some money into the Powerful art such as Blind Shaft provides TURES the cremated remains of his “relative” onto boy’s bowl. Tang walks away muttering that not only a critical social mirror, but also a a garbage heap. the high school acceptance certificate dis- glimpse of the redemptive power of simple The bleakness of this world is both lit- played is probably false. The alliances shift human decency that survives against all eral and spiritual. Across a gray barren imperceptibly. odds, a hope flickering in the darkness. landscape of hard, beaten-down dirt, the Woven throughout this story are cri- REGULAR FEA narrative unfolds to depict a morally bank- tiques of the authorities and the rampant rupt social order marked by cynicism, mur- greed and disregard for human life their 1. Born in China in 1959, Li Yang grew up in a derous self-interest and calculated bankrupt stewardship has engendered. The family of actors. After high school, he worked interpersonal relations. Nothing is quite as mine boss’s reaction to the first “cave-in” as an actor in the China Youth Arts Theater in it seems and everything can be faked— and possible injuries and deaths is a reflec- Beijing from 1978 to 1985, and then studied film directing at the Beijing Broadcasting Insti- identity cards, passports, familial relation- tion of the Chinese authorities’ reactions to tute from 1985 to 1987. He left China in ships, friendship. Tang declares at one disasters. He orders the immediate block- 1988 to study German literature at the Free point, “Now only a mom’s feelings for her ing of the exits to the outside world to pre- University of Berlin, and went on to focus on kids aren’t faked.” vent any information from getting out, and dramatic theory at Ludwig-Maxmillian Univer- Without any artifice, stepping into the later orders the immediate cremation of the sity of Munich from 1990 to 1992. After void of a disappeared father (possibly one bodies to destroy evidence, echoing the graduating from the University of Munich, Li of the murder victims of Tang and Song) to Chinese government’s approaches to the Yang went on to study Film Directing at the support his sister and his mother, a 16- HIV/AIDS and SARS health crises. Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. While at year-old boy, Yuan Fengming, embodies There are pokes at socialism. At a the Academy he wrote and directed several another moral center. In an open square, karaoke bar, Tang insists on singing “Long documentaries—Women’s Kingdom (1991), Tang first spots Yuan Fengming, his nar- Live Socialism,” recalling that he was in the Happy Swan (1994) and The Wake (1996)— the last film completed after his graduation. rowed eyes marking the boy as the next front row when they sang this years ago: 2. Blind Shaft received the Silver Bear for Artis- scam victim. Tang stalks him and strikes up The socialist countries are on top—the reac- tic Contribution in Directing and Writing at the a conversation, playing upon the boy’s need tionaries are overthrown, the imperialists Berlin International Film Festival 2003, and to find work and his trust in others. The run away with their tails between their legs. awards at the Deauville Asian Film Festival story’s resulting moral and psychological But two young prostitutes laugh and say the (five out of all six awards, including Best Film, tension is shaped by the shifting negotia- words have changed: The reactionaries Best Director and Best Actor), Buenos Aires tions among this odd triangle of Yuan Feng- were never overthrown; the capitalists came Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film ming, innocently carrying his values of filial back with their US dollars, liberating all of Festival (Firebird Award), and the Tribeca Inter- piety, respect for his elders and faith in a China, bringing the sexual climax of social- national Film Festival (Best Feature Film). future; Song, now adopting the role of the ism. The men laugh, sing along drunkenly, boy’s “uncle” while finding his level of com- new words to an old song.
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