Mang shan

I was able to see this movie at the Portland International Film Festival. I'm a huge fan of Asian cinema, particularly Japanese and Korean films. Before this, I had seen very little from the Chinese, and i must say this is a great introduction to China's promising film-making talent. Not one scene of this movie bored me, as i thought it certainly would. The majority of the movie follows the main characters imprisonment in the isolated village, and her numerous attempts to escape until the final, abrupt yet amazing, ending. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who enjoys great cinema, and i personally can't wait until i get my hands on this movie. Ironically, i saw this with my girlfriend on valentine's day. Talk about silly.

BLIND MOUNTAIN (dir. Yang Li) Although set in China during the early 1990's, this drama seems completely out of sync with the modern world. A college educated young woman is lured to Northern China with the promise of a well paying job, but she actually has been sold to a village family to become the wife of their eldest son. The villagers would have let her go if she paid back the $7,000 in dowry money that they paid for her, but she has no identification or money, and they are convinced she is only trying to renege on the deal. The authorities were aware of her plight, yet took the side of the villagers. Apparently this is not an isolated incident, and the film implies that there are many such rural Chinese women in the same predicament. Although the subject matter is harrowing, the mountainous terrain where the film was shot is undeniably beautiful. Very much worth a look.

In the early 90s, a young woman, Bai Xuemei, a recent college graduate, travels to the countryside of rural Shaanxi province believing she is going to start a job selling medicine to rural peasants. After arriving at remote village, she is drugged and awakes to discover her identity papers have been taken and she is the prisoner of her new 'husband', a contemptuous, uneducated peasant who has bought her for 7000 yuan. Bai protests and tries to leave but is forcibly restrained by her new 'family'. In fact, her new husband's parents assist him in restraining her so that she can be raped. Eventually Bai manages to escape her confinement and flees to inform the local police and is brought to the village chief. He, however, won't help her without proof (identity papers) or a refund of the 7000 yuan and returns her to custody of her would-be-husband. Later Bai meets other prisoner wives who share her fate but have long given up their will to escape. Horrified, as the seriousness of her predicament sinks in, she makes more desperate attempts to escape.

Incredibly enough, the film is based on the real stories of women who were enslaved this way in rural China - the demand for wives brought about by the imbalance of male and female children in the countryside. For once an idyllic, isolated rural Chinese village is portrayed as a place of ignorance and malevolence and a place to escape from. Amazing acting from the cast of non-actors who play themselves very convincingly. The only disappointment might be Bai herself who, as a college graduate, doesn't seem to plan her escape attempts very well.

The style reminded me so much of Zhang Yimou's "Not One Less" - the way that it was directed with nonactors (only two of the characters were professional actors), the teaching of school children in the country side, and the contrast between the lifestyles of rural and urban China. In fact, I'm pretty sure that one of the locations in the city is a location in Not One Less – the broadcast station. I'm wondering whether or not the obvious influences are intentional, since this movie seemed to be receiving warm praise. I would hate to learn that the director did not realize the similarities between this and Not One Less, since Zhang Yimou's present influence seemed to be somewhat overt to me. The way in which it is shot mostly with wide lenses with a deemphasis on the shot in order to normalize and situate the film as a socialistic commentary on modern day China definitely owes much to the 5th gen directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and others (at least in my opinion). I don't think this film is anywhere near the level that those experienced veterans are used to making, but it's a good effort. I think the biggest thing that it lacks is fluency between scenes and I think that that is a burden the actors have to carry. It's difficult to direct nonactors (imagine being abducted to act for a month, i'm surprised they weren't terrified 100% of the time). He actually used real policemen, hospital workers, and rural villagers and although they don't have to pretend to be anyone other than themselves, it can be dangerous if these characters have a presence in the movie because they have to be able to carry on the story in their own way as well. Even minor roles have motivations and emotional arcs, but it seems as if these people have lost them, and are acting from a shot to shot basis without any idea of how the overall story is like. I'm glad I got to see this film though, despite the acting, because it gives me a chance to see how important the element of directing your actors are. And I definitely respect the choice of using nonactors. It seems to be a characteristic feature of many of these kinds of international films. Besides, these people have a realistic understanding of the micro-cosmic world of which we so easily play critic from afar. You just have to know how to tap into it.

Blind Mountain is an excellent film about a college girl being duped into going into a mountain village and left there "sold" as a bride and her attempts to escape and get back to her family. The plot sounds trite but Yang Li's excellent direction and the crisp editing along with superb performances in the main roles, make this into a twisting horror story and the viewer knows not, where the plot is going.

Apart from the main role of Bai and the teacher, all other actors were actual mountain village people which is startling in the uncompromising look at their culture and the hard lives ingrained into their faces, there are also some real, now rescued, "brides" playing themselves in the film.

Although the film as a good social point to make, it's not preaching or forcing the issues on you but rather asking you to examine the situation. To the villagers, this is just life and it's always been this way, to observers they seem inhumane. Although the film obviously brings up the issue of the one child policy, these villages and bride trafficking have been going one since long before that policy was put into affect and still does in many parts of the world, not just China.

Yang Li was in the audience and took questions at the Hawaii International Film Festival. It was annoying to see the Q&A get hijacked a little by feminists wanting to make a point and answering their own questions but other than that the director was frank and forthcoming about his film.

Excellent. Recommended.