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An old friend of the Chinese people
date: 7/29/2008
‘Don’t film China as a rose’ was Prime Minister Chou En-Lai’s advise to director Joris Ivens, when the latter embarked in 1972 on a film project focusing on China’s Cultural Revolution, the 12-hour long documentary epic How Yukong Moved The Mountains (1976). The Prime Minister meant that Ivens shouldn’t limit himself to showing only the beautiful sides of China. Looking back it becomes clear just how ambiguous this advise was. An old friend of the Chinese people, a film made by the Dutch filmmaker René Seegers on the basis of Ivens’ experiences in China...
...shows the way in which the Chinese leaders won artists, journalists and filmmakers over to support their cause during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The documentary focuses on the question ‘Who is directing whom?’ Interviews with former collaborators and friends in China give an insight into the conditions under which Ivens had to work. He was the first Westerner, after decades of isolation, to be allowed to present China to the outside world. However, Prime Minister Chou En-Lai had taken precautions to ensure that the projected image of China was a positive one. Ivens filmed during a period – after Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 – in which the most radical period of the Cultural Revolution had died down. Ivens focused mainly on matters regarding daily life. Previously, Ivens and his wife Marceline Loridan-Ivens had attended meetings in Western Europe and prepared lists of questions regarding matters people in the West would like to know about China. These questions served as a guideline for the film. Director Seegers consulted, among others, the Ivens Archives for his research. In De Groene Amsterdammer newsmagazine, Seegers says about the film: “Did Ivens let himself be forced into a straitjacket by the Chinese ruling elite? Did he see what they wanted him to see? Or was it more subtle than that and did he see, as a fervent Maoist, especially that which he himself wished to see? It is a very Dutch trait to regard Ivens either as a great director who was naïve about the Cultural Revolution, or as a reprehensible, Stalinist hardliner. I think the truth lies somewhere between those two opposites. Ivens traveled all over the world and witnessed many changes.
He’s never been naïve about anything, but an idealist, that he was. He really did believe in a better world.” “It’s an intriguing mechanism,” continues Seegers.
“What do you see when you travel somewhere? For the most part, and this is also confirmed by scientific research, we see our own bias and pre-conceived notions.
The so-called ‘pram-syndrome’: when you’re pregnant, you start seeing prams all over town. Our image of reality is greatly influenced by that which we share with others.”
Hour of the Wolf: An old friend of the Chinese people
Friday August 1st 2008 – 23:15 PM - 00:15 AM
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