Independent Chinese Documentary by Edwards Dan;

Author:Edwards, Dan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 2015-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

I felt that if we could make a film about the Huang case like Hu Jie’s on Lin Zhao, we might be able to reach a wider public. When people saw it, they might be drawn in to participate and discuss the case, as with Sun Zhigang.26

After screening his Lin Zhao film, Hu Jie had assisted Ai in making a short film about a ‘date rape’ that had occurred at Sun Yatsen University entitled White Ribbon (Bai sidai, 2004). They also worked together on a film version of a production of The Vagina Monologues that Ai had staged with her students.27 They then worked together on Ai’s feature-length documentary about the Huang Jing case, and have since continued to collaborate on many of Ai’s films. The inspiration Ai received from Hu Jie’s work, and the collaborative relationship the two of them have since forged, is a prime example of the way independent documentaries in China often generate further filmmaking activities, as viewers realise it is possible to pick up a camera, make their own films and place views and experiences on screen that are excluded from the official public sphere of film and television.

In her first feature-length documentary, Ai constructs a mode of audience address she has since utilised in much of her work. Garden in Heaven opens with Ai visiting the home village of Sun Zhigang to interview the dead youth’s relatives. Sun’s uncle speaks to camera of the authorities’ attempts to cover up Sun’s murder, while his grandfather shows Sun’s personal effects to the filmmaker. The sequence works directly on the viewer’s emotions, with a scene of Sun’s father weeping for his ‘dear son’ followed by a series of photographs of Sun growing up set to mournful music. Following this prologue, an intertitle and voiceover from Ai posit the main part of the film as a first-person response to a plea for help. The voiceover and text state:

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