China Film Journal

Boomtown Beijing does fulfill its basic mission of capturing how ordinarhy Beijing residents are preparing for the Olympics. It’s an interesting cross-section of Beijing–there;s an old man practicsing magic sticks, a nearly blind sprinter preparing for the Paralympics, a young boy who wants to be torch-bearer even though he’s too young. These are people who are lit up, from the inside, by their dreams, but wwho are, nonetheless, quite aware of the possibility that their dreams will never come to pass.

The only real complaint that I had with this movie was that it was a bit too rough, and by this I mean its editing and structure, rhythm and pacing–there were several characters, each developed in parallel. The ccharacters were introduced with subtitles, rather than narration–somehow it came across a bit haphazard. There was no real connection between any of the characters, which made each one a separate vignette, tied together “externally” only by the fact that we know they are all preparing, in their way, for the Olympics. Although by including all these disparate characters we are offered more information, it never gelled together; there was no cohesive narrative, the pace sometimes seemed slow, since we were always a bit in teh dark as to what was happening with each character.

I’m not the type of film viewer that likes to be told everything, and I’m also a part-time fan of the fly-on-the-wall school of filmmaking, which dispenses with talking heads and narrators imposing their version of events on you. However, there were times when I wish Boomtown Beijing had precisely that–something or someone weaving the threads together. We go from the characters and their individual quests to investigations of the changing physical landscape of Beijing–which is fine, since the latter is an intellectually interesting topic in itself and also terribly topical because the ancient capital is, in many ways, getting a major facelift, and what was will never be again. However, Boomtown Beijing dips its toes in the water but doesn’t want to get too wet. Given that it was made by students and staff at the Beijing Film Academy on a obviously shoestring budget, perhaps we shouldn’t ask that it go too into depth. It wasn’t meant to be some Ken Burns-esque heavy on historical research and overview type documentary. I am merely stating what I felt as I was watching it. Perhaps it is to the film’s credit that it at least elicits this greater curiosity in the subject.

By the end of the film you get a better sense of who each person is, and things start falling into place. Still, there’s not much narrative thrust…as I said before, the film seems to be have made in a short time, on the cheap, and life isn’t always as packed with drama as fiction is. I think Boomtown Beijing works as a light sketch of life for some Beijing Olympics fanatics in the run-up to the games–but not necessarily as a highly nuanced or detailed portrait of a human and physical/built environment in flux. The latter is higher order, no doubt, that will have to be left to someone with more time and credit cards.
Technorati Tags: beijing, olympics, 2008, sports, athletics, documentary, video, chinese, china, society

We just read an article in Xinhua about a “made to order film vignette and profile series” called “Boy Meets China” is going to “introduce some of the country’s most colorful, influential, and potentially influential people: sports figures, superstars in the music, movie, and fashion scenes, young entrepeneurs and artists whose works sell for millions in the Western world.

The “boy” who is hosting the show is 22 year old New Yorker Eames Yates, Jr. The point behind this show, which is supposed to air on the new international channel, is to remedy the information asymmetries between China and the US, because not enough US people really understand what the “new China” is like. So Yates goes out and interviews a bunch of famous people, such as Jet Li, and had this to say about the experience.

“Mr Li was genuinely happy and fun. After I got over my initial fear that he was going to deliver a fatal blow if I said the wrong thing, I loosened up and we really connected in a way that should occur much more often between East and West.”

Well, need we go on? The whole thing sounds hopelessly cliched — or is that just the soporific effect of Xinhua-nese language? I don’t know. All I know is that the Olympics is not just about a platform for athletes — no, it’s going to end up being a platform for a whole host of wankers to host their wankathons on TV, engaging in a type of spiritual pollution that the commies, had they any sense, should get riled up about.

We haven’t found any clips online yet, but we’ll post some them as soon as we do.

The idea is simple: get five internationally reknowned directors to make short, impressionistic films about Beijing, showing the people of Beijing in their everyday lives and as they prepare for the Olympics—and in the kindest light possible. The five filmmakers were: Patrice Leconte (France), Andrew Lau (Hong Kong/China), Majid Majidi (Iran), Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy), and Daryl Goodrich (UK). You can find a rundown of each film’s style and content as well as a link to each one.Whatever their differences in style and subject matter, they are all undeniably and unforgivably cheesy, like postcards of moving images. They remind us of those insipid China Eastern Airlines commercials—except worse—because you have to take into account that these were made by men (not a woman in the bunch) that have, at some point in their lives, made films that were actually fit for human consumption.There’s a little voice inside our head that tells us that no one likes the guy that takes things a bit too seriously and can’t see the light-hearted side of things—it’s the Olympics for chrissakes, Pollyannish is to be expected, Olympic-colored balloons can and should rise and form the Olympic rings in the azure sky. At the same time, there was another little voice in our head that it’s also okay for us to slightly downgrade our respect for directors, renowned or not, that strew this kind of filmic excrement over our collective sidewalk. These artists are kinda sucking CCP cock, aren’t they? Okay, we know this ain’t Cannes, and that it might be considered an honor by some to be allowed to make promotional films for the Olympic Games. But seriously, is banality the new language of ideology? Please, show us more people striking on drums and practicing tai-chi in the park. And throw in some cute little Chinese kids while you’re at it. Sorry, </end_rant_here>. We’ll start taking our meds again, we promise.