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Chinese
Films are Focus of Sixth Annual Asian Film Festival
Hosted by the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College
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Compelling Chinese film is the focus of the Sixth Annual
Asian Film Series, hosted by the Pacific Basin Institute at
Pomona College. The five-film series begins on Sunday,
February 6 and continues with screenings on Feb. 13, Feb.
20, Feb. 27 and March 6. Each screening will begin at 7:30
p.m. and be shown in the Pomona College Rose Hills Theater,
Smith Campus Center, 170 E. Sixth St., Claremont. For more
information, call (909) 607-8065 or visit www.pomona.edu/pbi.
February 6 - Frozen (Jidu hanleng)
Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai, 1995, running time 93 minutes
A stunning and demanding film, this movie takes the audience
into the world of Beijing's artistic avant-garde in the late
1980s and early 1990s. A daring young artist in Beijing is
obsessed with performance art and makes his own suicide his
last work of art. On the longest day of the year, he plans
to melt a huge block of ice with his own body heat and die
of hypothermia. He calls this protest against the coldness
of society "Funeral on Ice." Based upon a similar
performance staged in Beijing and shot in 1994, "Frozen" is
a unique work even among independently produced Chinese
films.
February 13 - East Palace, West Palace (Donggong
xigong)
Directed by Zhang Yuan, China, 1996, running minutes 94
minutes
This controversial and compelling film centers on a
sensitive young gay writer who is arrested at his favorite
cruising ground and held by the police for intensive
interrogation. The questioning quickly transforms into an
unwanted run-through of his tumultuous life, seen in
flashbacks: his childhood, parents, school, first sexual
experience, and politics. His seductive manner begins to
alternately fascinate and repulse the policeman, who is
drawn to the complexities of pleasure and pain. In 1997, the
Chinese government put director Zhang Yuan under house
arrest and confiscated his passport. His friends smuggled
this movie out of the country so it could be shown at the
1997 Cannes film festival.
February 20 - Suzhou River (Suzhouhe)
Directed by Lou Ye, running time 83 minutes
The river Suzhou that flows through Shanghai is a reservoir
of filth, chaos and poverty, but also a meeting place for
memories and secrets. Lou Ye, who spent his youth on the
banks of the Suzhou, shows the river as a Chinese Styx, in
which forgotten stories and mysteries come together. The
director movingly portrays the “testimonies” of the river
and his restless style captures the mood of a young
generation, far from the tourist image of Shanghai.
February 27 - The Orphan of Anyang (Anyang Yiner)
Directed by Wang Chao, 2001, running time 84 minutes
Dagang is over forty, unmarried (not by choice), and
unemployed. He takes on an orphan in order to receive 200
yuan as child welfare benefit. The film looks at his life
and the lives of other lower class characters such as the
orphan’s prostitute mother, his father dying of leukemia,
and a ringleader. As the film follows them all, we come to
understand how they have been severed from tradition and how
they try to make something of their lives despite the
hardship posed by the influx of capitalism.
March 6 - Blind Shaft (Mang Jing)
Directed by Li Yang, 2003, running time 92 minutes
“Blind Shaft” is a tale of two miners in an illegal mining
town in the north of China. As it explores the life of these
two men, the film reveals a side of contemporary China that
most have ignored. From the 5th generation filmmakers to the
recent independent filmmakers, there has not been a film
that portrays the darker side of Chinese society as severely
as this one. Li Yang shows how poverty lies beneath the
rapid development of Chinese society and how it undermines
humanity.
The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College is dedicated
to expanding and enhancing comity and shared knowledge among
the nations and cultures that face on the Pacific Ocean. A
valued study, media production and research center for the
distinguished, PBI also offers books, films and lecture
programs to a general as well as academic audience. Pomona
College has been a leader in Asian Studies among American
college and universities since the turn of the past century.
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