China breaks out

Since the 1950s, filmmaking in China has been clamped in the vise of communist censorship, and predictably sanitized and politically correct fare has been the order of the day. Recently there has been not just a trickle but a surge of feature films from that country that would not have been possible 10 years ago, as the “New Chinese Cinema” series from the UCLA Film and Television Archive demonstrates.

Some of the eight films featured in the series, which opens Saturday, are daring for their deviation from political orthodoxy, such as Jiang Wen’s reexamination of the Chinese under Japanese occupation in “Devils on the Doorstep” or Hu Ze’s chronicle of rebellious artists in “Beijing Suburb.” Others push the envelope in their inclusion of sexual themes, whether frank heterosexual depiction as in Emily Tang’s “Conjugation” or extreme ones in the vignettes of transgender tease in Cui Zi’en’s “Enter the Clowns.” Co-curated by the archive’s head programmer, Cheng-Sim Lim, and by CalArts faculty member Berenice Reynaud, the series is not a comprehensive survey of current Chinese cinema, which certainly includes its share of fluff and box-office pandering, but a look at its edgier efforts.

These efforts are possible because the traditional studio system has broken down, and independent filmmakers have found ways to make films through co-production, foreign funding, shooting without licenses and other circumventions. And finally, in the past year, it is possible for independent production companies to apply for filmmaking licenses in China, although their projects are still subject to government script approval.

To remain free of such constraints, Reynaud says some filmmakers prefer to stay “underground,” such as those behind “The Orphan of Anyang,” “Beijing Suburb” and “Enter the Clowns.” These touch on still-forbidden topics such as police repression and corruption, prostitution, homosexuality and transsexualism, or unemployment in the new economy.

The understated but compelling “The Orphan of Anyang,” for example, opens with a middle-aged man facing unemployment after being laid off by an unprofitable factory. To make ends meet, he decides to look after an infant in exchange for a stipend offered by the child’s mother, a downtrodden prostitute. For one happy moment, it looks as though a new family unit is about to be formed -- until the child’s father, a gangland boss, decides he wants his son.

Like other unlicensed productions, “Orphan” cannot be distributed theatrically in China, so director Wang Chao has publicly said he can give away free DVDs of the film to anyone who wants to see it.

Interestingly, two of the veteran filmmakers in this group, Jiang Wen and Tian Zhuangzhuang, have used the traditional Chinese literary device of looking backward to address the present. “Springtime in a Small Town” is Tian’s first film since he was officially blacklisted for “The Blue Kite” (1993), about the excesses of the Cultural Revolution as seen through the eyes of a young boy. Authorities found it overcritical of government policy.

“Springtime” is classical, and Tian uses mostly unknown young actors to weave this graceful, bittersweet tale of love lost and gained. A remake of Fei Mu’s 1948 masterpiece, the new film is a throwback to the composed, postwar Chinese melodramas. Zhichen returns to a bombed-out village to revisit his old friend Liyan -- who happens to have married Zhichen’s childhood sweetheart, Yuwen.

Soon Yuwen finds herself torn between her Confucian obligation to her sickly, conservative husband and her heartfelt yearning for lively, progressive-thinking Zhichen, fresh from big-city Shanghai and dapper in his Western suits.

A birthday celebration becomes the excuse to unleash repressed emotions -- and Zhichen makes a public play for his old flame. That night Yuwen comes to his room, ready to take him up on his flirtation. The subtext is the tug between the old society and its stifling feudalism and the new society and its promise of free will and individual choice -- but here the results are something of an impasse. (See Screening Room on the next page for Kevin Thomas’ assessment of “Springtime in a Small Town.”)

“Devils on the Doorstep” takes place in a remote northeastern village under Japanese occupation in the 1940s. The villagers and the foreign troops coexist peacefully -- already an unorthodox depiction; a more traditional film would have shown the Japanese as bloodthirsty demons. The movie opens on a tone of broad comedy when two prisoners are thrown into the house of Ma Dasan (played by Jiang Wen himself) for safekeeping by a shadowy figure. This bit of skulduggery initiates a cycle of secretiveness and jailer mentality that the villagers aren’t equipped for -- and ultimately leads to a tragedy of epic proportions.

The work is hailed as an “antiwar masterpiece” by Reynaud, who believes “it shows that there are no winners in a war. In a war everybody loses.”

“Devils” premiered at Cannes two years ago and won the Grand Prix, but the film was subsequently banned in China. Jiang himself has been blacklisted from making any more films, but he has managed to continue his acting career.

As young filmmakers do everywhere, those in China tend to focus on the problems of their own generation. In “Conjugation” Tang looks at the growing malaise of a group of students after Tiananmen Square in 1989. Haunted by the fact that one friend has gone “missing” (probably killed or jailed), they halfheartedly go through the days thinking up moneymaking schemes and drinking way too much. Soon love and friendships fall apart.

Discontent also underlies the protagonist of Wen Hai’s “Beijing Suburb,” an artist who creates large expressionist canvases “about how people torture one another” for himself and the occasional “Van Gogh” sunflower on commission. He’s also into performance art, and in one private performance, he stands onstage in the airplane position -- bent over, arms stretched up behind him, a position those punished during the Cultural Revolution were forced to take -- while a comically lackadaisical chorus sings a popular children’s song. The refrain -- “Our homeland is a garden with colorful flowers. We are under warm sunshine with a smile on everyone’s face. Wahaha, Wahaha

Indeed, in reality, art shows have been shut down and artists arrested for producing “subversive” work, with subversive broadly defined. While slowly paced, the film would be of interest to anyone who wants to know the particular struggles of contemporary artists in China -- who are, not surprisingly, a macho bunch of guys, into tough talking and hard drinking.

But lest we forget that China is still predominantly rural and agricultural, the series includes Ning Ying’s “Railroad of Hope,” an unexpectedly moving film that is also the sole documentary in the series. Her narrative films (“On the Beat,” “I Love Beijing”) have often had the matter-of-fact feel of documentaries, and here she demonstrates her narrative gifts in an actual one.

Every year in August and September thousands of Sichuan peasants squeeze onto overcrowded trains to take a 50-hour trip to Xinjiang, where they have been promised short-term jobs that net them a small fortune. Ning Ying and her crew interviewed about a dozen men, women and children en route about their expectations and their aspirations. The lucky ones have seats; the less fortunate are crammed into the aisles and passages.

Each story is remarkably direct and poignant, as when one woman reveals that she was deceived into marriage with a much older man she is traveling to meet. Is she happy now? “You can never be happy when you’ve been deceived,” she says, the smiling voice breaking into grief.

Another interviewee, a middle-aged peasant, when asked what happiness is, replies with clarity, “Autonomy ... not being looked down on by others, not being afraid to be bullied, living honestly and in dignity, even modestly working hard to support oneself, all this can be happiness.” His calm, resilient attitude goes far in explaining what makes it possible for thousands, millions of Chinese who continue to work so hard for what may seem to us sub-minimal standards of living.

His words ring with conviction when he says, “The most important things in a man’s life are to be alive, to have ideals.”

*

‘New Chinese Cinema’

“Springtime in a Small Town (Xiao Cheng Zhi Chun)”

Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

“The Orphan of Anyang (Anyang De Guer)” and “Beijing Suburb (Beijing Jiaoqu)” Sunday at 2 p.m.

“Railroad of Hope (Xi Wang Zhi Lu)” and “Devils on the Doorstep (Guizi Lai Le)”

Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m.

“Conjugation (Dong Ci Bian Wei)”

Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m.

“Enter the Clowns (Choujue Dengchang)” and “Chicken Poets (Xiang Ji Mao Yi Yang Fei)”

Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA, Westwood.

Cost: $5 to $7

Contact: (310) 206-FILM