For some reason, it's not easy to get sufficient information of this movie from this website. This movie has never been popular. Not many people have watched it. To make the situation worse, the limited available information is not even accurate enough. So I will try to share more background story of this movie when I make my comments.
Being invited by the Chinese government, Antonioni spent eight weeks in China to make this documentary. Eight weeks are very short for making a movie. Antonioni said that he "can't offer more but only show a picture of China." After this movie was completed, however, the Chinese government harshly condemned this film as well as Antonioni. In consequence, this film has never been publicly released in China. This consequence also affected Antonioni, which made this movie would never become one of his favorites, and this movie was not available for most audiences all over the world, including the United States.
Generally speaking, this is a very interesting movie, even though the pace is a little bit slow sometimes. The version I watched includes three parts. The first and second parts each last one hour and twenty minutes, and the third part lasts almost one hour. So the total length is more than three hours, and you may want to give some patience if you like finishing it at one time. It was said the original version even lasted for four hours.
As a documentary, this film was composed of many "snatches", which could be either prepared or unprepared. Prepared snatches were what the Chinese government wanted to display to Antonioni, such as the well-trained children in a primary school singing political songs, or the Yangtze River Bridge in Nanking as an achievement of architecture. Unprepared snatches were those freely filmed by Antonioni. Intentionally or not, these two types of snatches were interwoven in the film and created a special style that's quite different from other documentaries. It were the unprepared snatches that irritated the Chinese government.
It's definitely not about acrobat, although acrobat was also filmed. It is about the Chinese society, especially the lives of regular people who were living in the cities or rural areas during the early 1970's in China.
For those who are interested in Chinese modern history, they do not want to miss the history of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, launched by Mao Tse-tung. Nowadays, it may not be too hard to collect stories that happened during that era from novels or other materials that you can get from a library or online. However, I've scarcely seen a movie like this showing the *real* lives of those people. That is not a story. Instead, that is a page of life, recorded in a film by a great film maker. There were so few movies available to let you know this, which was another reason that made this movie very special.
Among the three parts of this film, the first part focused on Beijing. It's quite different from today's Beijing. Antonioni and his crew were shown a primary school where kids were playing, a hospital where a woman was giving a cesarean birth, and some factories and workers. The kids at the primary school were singing political songs and dancing with similar music that were taught to acclaim the leadership of Mao Tse-tung and the communist party. Even though the prepared snatches were not natural (it's ridiculous for those cute children to sing these songs), I would say they also made this film very valuable as they were first-hand materials collected from that society.
The second part was about Hunan Province and two cities: Suzhou and Nanking. In Hunan, villagers were shy but they also showed great curiosity, since they had rarely seen a foreigner. You can tell that plot was not prepared by the government. Suzhou was considered as "the Venice of China." Antonioni said it was a "very beautiful city with traditional culture." In Nanking, people were not so shy, but they were a lot busier than those in Hunan villages. Antonioni only gave less than one minute to the bridge above Yangtze River that the government was proud of; he used most time to show how people carried heavy stuff, walked in the street, and made a living.
The third part showed Shanghai, the biggest industrial city in China. There the European-style buildings that had used to be business centers were used as government offices. He was shown a steel-making factory. He also filmed some restaurants, where people were enjoying noodles. He said, "We don't feel happy when we hear Chinese always say they invented spaghetti."
The narration ended with an old Chinese saying, "Appearances certainly are deceptive." It's profound and very interesting.
Being invited by the Chinese government, Antonioni spent eight weeks in China to make this documentary. Eight weeks are very short for making a movie. Antonioni said that he "can't offer more but only show a picture of China." After this movie was completed, however, the Chinese government harshly condemned this film as well as Antonioni. In consequence, this film has never been publicly released in China. This consequence also affected Antonioni, which made this movie would never become one of his favorites, and this movie was not available for most audiences all over the world, including the United States.
Generally speaking, this is a very interesting movie, even though the pace is a little bit slow sometimes. The version I watched includes three parts. The first and second parts each last one hour and twenty minutes, and the third part lasts almost one hour. So the total length is more than three hours, and you may want to give some patience if you like finishing it at one time. It was said the original version even lasted for four hours.
As a documentary, this film was composed of many "snatches", which could be either prepared or unprepared. Prepared snatches were what the Chinese government wanted to display to Antonioni, such as the well-trained children in a primary school singing political songs, or the Yangtze River Bridge in Nanking as an achievement of architecture. Unprepared snatches were those freely filmed by Antonioni. Intentionally or not, these two types of snatches were interwoven in the film and created a special style that's quite different from other documentaries. It were the unprepared snatches that irritated the Chinese government.
It's definitely not about acrobat, although acrobat was also filmed. It is about the Chinese society, especially the lives of regular people who were living in the cities or rural areas during the early 1970's in China.
For those who are interested in Chinese modern history, they do not want to miss the history of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, launched by Mao Tse-tung. Nowadays, it may not be too hard to collect stories that happened during that era from novels or other materials that you can get from a library or online. However, I've scarcely seen a movie like this showing the *real* lives of those people. That is not a story. Instead, that is a page of life, recorded in a film by a great film maker. There were so few movies available to let you know this, which was another reason that made this movie very special.
Among the three parts of this film, the first part focused on Beijing. It's quite different from today's Beijing. Antonioni and his crew were shown a primary school where kids were playing, a hospital where a woman was giving a cesarean birth, and some factories and workers. The kids at the primary school were singing political songs and dancing with similar music that were taught to acclaim the leadership of Mao Tse-tung and the communist party. Even though the prepared snatches were not natural (it's ridiculous for those cute children to sing these songs), I would say they also made this film very valuable as they were first-hand materials collected from that society.
The second part was about Hunan Province and two cities: Suzhou and Nanking. In Hunan, villagers were shy but they also showed great curiosity, since they had rarely seen a foreigner. You can tell that plot was not prepared by the government. Suzhou was considered as "the Venice of China." Antonioni said it was a "very beautiful city with traditional culture." In Nanking, people were not so shy, but they were a lot busier than those in Hunan villages. Antonioni only gave less than one minute to the bridge above Yangtze River that the government was proud of; he used most time to show how people carried heavy stuff, walked in the street, and made a living.
The third part showed Shanghai, the biggest industrial city in China. There the European-style buildings that had used to be business centers were used as government offices. He was shown a steel-making factory. He also filmed some restaurants, where people were enjoying noodles. He said, "We don't feel happy when we hear Chinese always say they invented spaghetti."
The narration ended with an old Chinese saying, "Appearances certainly are deceptive." It's profound and very interesting.
