MCLC: Documentary Watermarks

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MCLC LIST
Documentary Watermarks
I recently watched a Swiss documentary which doesn't seem to be well known yet, and I'd like to bring it to the attention of List members.
Watermarks, a film by Luc Schaedler in collaboration with Markus Schiesser, enters into the lives of a few ordinary Chinese.  It is in three parts, and the symbolism of water (scarce, abundant, or endangered) links the three like a Leitmotiv, as does the burden of time (present, past, and future). The camera work is exquisite, the interviewing deft, and the pacing, while contemplative, never drags.  We follow one apparently cheerful, practical woman to the industrial zone in Inner Mongolia to which she and her husband have returned after leaving her toddler 600 kilometers away with her in-laws. The industrial zone calls to mind Blake's dark, Satanic mills, except that Schaedler's cinematography can reveal a hypnotic beauty in the bulldozers of a strip mine. In a quiet moment back in their dormitory room, the woman says,
"You ask me about my dreams? [laughs nervously, then wipes her eye] What kind of dream could I have under these conditions? Just . . . to be realistic . . . I work here, save some money, buy an apartment and settle down here. A bigger dream will not come true. Peace and security for the family . . . just an average life.  I don't have dreams. . . ."
Later she remarks, "I feel relieved after speaking about it.  If you hadn't asked, I would never have talked about it.  It would still be buried deep in my heart."
In the verdant South we meet a retired Party Secretary with haunted eyes who has made friends with the formerly persecuted son of a landlord, and in Chongqing we encounter an eccentric teenager, eventually glimpsing the depths in her and understanding why she is who she is.  There is also an environmental activist in his seventies, who interprets 1989 in a crowded tea-house where no one seems to pay any attention.  The film does not tell, but shows, and it does it with Sophoclean dignity and restraint.
Subtitles on the DVD can be set for either English, German, French, or Chinese. Watermarks may be ordered at:
http://www.gobetweenfilms.com/news/dvd?lang=en.
I recommend it.
A. E. Clark <aec at raggedbanner.com>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on September 11, 2015
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