An Unfinished Film

I had long heard of this film and rushed to see it as soon as it screened in London. As the film says, how tragic it is to finish a movie that can't be shown. But during a masterclass, the director said he simply forgot-forgot that filming here wasn't allowed, forgot about censorship. He just filmed what they wanted to film, and only afterward did they think about how to solve the problems.

"All your life, you search for a reason to love the land beneath your feet. But what does the greatness defined by others mean to you?" What moved me the most were the real documentary footage and the ending theme. Turns out, I haven't forgotten anything after all. While the film's value lies more in its social reality than in its artistic form, I'm grateful to see directors like Lou Ye still documenting what truly happens in China.

It reminds me of Zheng Yuanjie's novel The Pegasus Bus that I read as a child. A new bus encountered citywide gridlock on its very first trip. The driver adhered rigidly to the rule 'no opening doors before reaching a stop,' refusing to let passengers disembark. The traffic jam lasted twelve years, with the government air-dropping supplies by helicopter to sustain those trapped. Passengers got married, had children, formed organizations, and even apprehended lawbreakers onboard. A new generation grew up within the sealed bus, regarding it as their 'whole world.' Now that I think about it, are we really so different from those living on that bus?

The first half, which moves from the pseudo-documentary format of the crew rebooting a decade-old project in late 2019, to positive footage shot ten years ago, eventually stopping at a screen shot of a documentary format blooper reel. And the second half gradually shifts from a pseudo-documentary at an isolation point to a cell phone vertical screen pseudo-documentary, and finally returns to real web footage. In the epilogue everyone gathers for a drink, speechless, just watching the real documentary material. The director's purpose is also called out. That is, under such a drastic change of the times, man-made movies will be forced to give way to real documentary material at the same time. Forced by the objective environment and the lack of filming conditions, active by the creators to recognize the powerlessness of man-made scripts, even if things have passed, the process of trying to restore the story in any case is not as powerful as the real material. Therefore, this movie is also very self-reflexive while being expressive at the same time. That is, through a pseudo-documentary movie format, it tells everyone about the powerlessness of drama and pseudo-documentary movies. That's why the rating for this movie itself is contradictory. On the other hand, in terms of scarcity, it is indeed one of the few non-main theme movies in mainland China with an epidemic as its background. After making these points clear, I believe we can all make our own judgments. The movie's score and awards thus become less important.

I CANNOT STOP CRYING. The film is only not longer than 2 hours but that really is a mere documentary of the very start and the followed 3 years of worse than hell we've actually been thru. We may have moved on now but THAT 3 YEARS of pure oppression and suffering is not to be forgiven and forgotten. The girl that cried for her mom following the ambulance carrying her mom's body to cremation without being allowed to see her one last time. The girl locked in the building whose mom jumped out of the window was just lying right outside, and she was not allowed to come out. The fire, the people who cannot escape for the building was locked with chains. And the fact that you are not even allowed to talk about any of it.

To European or U. S. audiences, you might don't like the shooting method, the plot is kind of messy, the screen is not clear.

But if you understand the censorship in China, or search about it before watching this movie, especially get some knowledge about Li Wenliang, Urumqi Fire in 2022, White Paper Revolution, then you will understand this film is about memory. During the film crew dancing in the hallway on the Chinese New Year, that is the human subconscious eagerness to freedom; the phone videos show people rebelling the policemen, that indicates citizens of China rebel Chinese Community Party.

When you know that this film is completely wiped out in the digital world of People's Republic of China, this is a Chinese director directed Chinese film about China during COVID which is prohibited to publish and watch only in China, and this is the true end of this film. This is the reason why I give it 9 stars!