MCLC: Hu Jie points camera at dark history

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Hu Jie points camera at dark history
***********************************************************

Source: PRI (1/24/14):
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-24/chinese-filmmaker-points-his-camera-d
arkest-moments-communist-party-history

A Chinese filmmaker points his camera at the darkest moments in Communist
Party history
Reporter Matthew Bell

Hu Jie, who is also a painter, stands in his Nanjing apartment next to a
portrait of one of the subjects of his films, Lin Zhao, a political
prisoner who was executed in the late 1960s.

The daughter of a former high-level Chinese official made some news
earlier this month when she publicly apologized for her role in a
notorious murder that took place during China's Cultural Revolution. The
1968 killing of a Beijing high school principal is the subject of a moving
2009 documentary film by Hu Jie, whose body of work puts a human face on
some of the worst horrors of the Communist Party's recent history.

The apology came from Song Binbin. And it was the latest in a series of
examples of people coming forward to ask for forgiveness for their actions
during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Her case attracted attention
in part because of her family background — though Song is not the first
person from a prominent Communist family to say she was sorry for
contributing to the political violence of those tumultuous years.

China's Internet censors moved quickly
<https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/01/red-guard-apologizes-role-teachers-d
eath/> to prevent the story from going viral.

“Please allow me to express my everlasting solicitude and apologies to
Principal Bian,” Song is quoted as saying. “I failed to properly protect
the school leaders, and this has been a lifelong source of anguish and
remorse.”

The story of the beating death of Bian Zhongyun and its aftermath is
movingly told in the documentary film called, "Though I am Gone." (See the
trailer below.) It was shot by Chinese documentary filmmaker Hu Jie. In
the opening scene, Hu asks Bian's widower Wang Jingyao, a photographer
himself, something as obvious as it is troubling.

"It must have been traumatic for you to take pictures of your wife's
body,” Hu is heard saying, just off-camera.

"Definitely," Wang answers. "But I was determined to record the truth of
history."

That statement goes a long way to explain Hu Jie's own approach to
documentary filmmaking."Though I am Gone" is devastating in its details.
The 48 year-old deputy high school principal knew she was in danger. But
Bian Zhongyun refused to flee Beijing, because she "did nothing wrong."

Eventually, schoolgirls with the Red Guards set upon Bian with homemade
weapons, including spiked clubs. Wang, her widower, got the news of her
death in a phone call that evening. So, he gathered his four young
children — and his camera — to go retrieve his wife's body from the
hospital.

The only time Wang breaks down in front of Hu's camera is when he talks
about being at home with his daughters and looking out the window. This is
long after Bian is gone. But the family still finds itself waiting and
watching for the murdered woman, impossibly, to come home.

This is this kind of simple human moment that makes Hu Jie's films so
powerful. He has done it again and again, by capturing personal stories of
trauma and suffering from China’s recent history.

In November last year, I had the chance to meet Hu Jie at his family's
apartment in Nanjing. He welcomed me with a strong handshake and some
green tea. He's got working man's hands and he's not overly tall. But Hu
seems like he would be tough to knock over. His build matches his square,
bearded jaw. And his eyes are warm and serious at the same time.

At the age of 19, in 1977, Hu joined the People's Liberation Army out of a
sense of patriotism. "It was the thing to do," Hu said.

His wife, Jiang Fenfen chimed in, saying "all the girls wanted to find a
soldier to marry in those days. Not a professor, not a teacher. But a
soldier." The two met during Hu's army days, when they ended up taking the
same painting class.

Hu's job with the army, though, was maintaining MiG-21 fighter planes as a
mechanic. Later, he was sent to work in the army's propaganda department.
That's where he started learning video editing.

When he got out of uniform, Hu landed a civilian job with the state-run
news agency, Xinhua, where he had access to a video camera. In his spare
time, Hu kept the camera rolling. And eventually, that got him fired.

"In China," Hu told me, "there aren't many films that tell the truth."

So, for the last 20 years, he has been on a personal mission of sorts to
rectify the situation. Hu has made films about people, coal miners and
migrant workers, being evicted by developers. But he has focused most of
his energy as a filmmaker on the period of Communist Party history from
the late 1950s through the 1970s. Denunciations, purges, famine and
political violence characterized those years.

Hu Jie's 2009 film, "East Wind State Farm" profiles a handful of survivors
from a farm labor camp in rural, southwestern China. These individuals
were Communist Party members who were purged in the late 1950s, and
labeled "rightists." Nearly 200 people died at this single location. Those
who lived spent more than 20 years in the camp before getting an official
pardon.

The government admitted they were wrongfully accused of being bad
communists. In the words of one of Hu's interviewees, “it was a historical
joke.”

I asked Hu if he's taken much heat from Chinese authorities because his
films so directly challenge the official history.

"China has passed through the stage of totalitarianism," Hu said. "There
are many more opportunities today."

Hu told me he never thinks of the risks that come with his style of
filmmaking, but the authorities seem keen to remind him that they are
paying attention. Hu said he has been visited many times by state security
agents. "They're always polite," he said, and nothing more serious has
come from those visits, so far.

In a sense, the Chinese government tolerates Hu’s film work. But they
certainly don’t make it easy for people to see his work in China. Hu’s
films have been shown at independent film festivals in China, but not in
theaters or on television. And he said that several attempts to distribute
them online have been blocked.

"Hu Jie is one of the most important filmmakers in China," said Karin
Chien of dGenerate Films, an American company that distributes Chinese
titles online, including two of Hu's films. But his audience in China is
not very big, she said.

“It's dangerous to look at the past," Chien explained. "I don't think it's
a question of whether Chinese audiences want it or not, I think it comes
down to control of information, you know, control of the grand narrative.”

Many stories from China's recent past, of course, will never be told. Hu
told me that only a handful of people in China are making independent
historical films. And in his own experience, most people who Hu approaches
won't agree to speak with him. People are just too nervous about talking
on camera and taking the risk of getting into trouble. But the ones who do
tell their stories, Hu said, these people are real heroes.

"They suffered through so much horror and violence," Hu said. "Then, they
recounted those experiences honestly and calmly.

"If I had never made these documentaries, no one would know how these
individuals lived through such tragedy with resourcefulness and energy,
and a sense human dignity. I find these personal stories inspiring," he
said.

And he thinks others will too.

A previous version of this story misspelled Karin Chien's name.