Two journeys into the Chinese psyche

Ning Ying’s captivating “Railroad of Hope” and Jiang Wen’s idiosyncratic “Devils on the Doorstep,” continues UCLA Film Archives’ New Chinese Cinema series on Saturday.

Set in China late in World War II, Jiang’s film opens in a rocky mountain village hard by a Japanese blockhouse. Late at night, a man, most likely a Chinese resistance fighter, bursts into a shack and thrusts two outsized gunnysacks onto an understandably alarmed peasant, played by Jiang. Inside the sacks are a terrified Japanese soldier (Teryuki Kagawa) and his Chinese interpreter (Yuan Ding). The peasant is ordered to interrogate the two prisoners and hold them until their captor returns at New Year’s, five days away. But six months later they’re still there.

“Devils” is a raucous, pitch-dark satirical comedy ever teetering on tragedy, and Jiang keeps us imaginatively off balance throughout. He evokes a timeless sense of brotherhood emerging between captors and captives, only to suggest how truly fragile it can be. This ambitious film ran afoul of Chinese censors, who deemed it unpatriotic and insisted on more than 20 minutes of cuts from its 160-minute running time before it could be shown at Cannes, where it was the second-place Grand Prix winner in 2000.

What this ironic picture actually depicts is people caught up in a volatile predicament and uncertain whether to respond to their worst or best instincts. Even though Jiang bowed to pressure and made the cuts, the censors banned the film in China and forbade Jiang from appearing in or directing any films for seven years, acts that express perfectly the movie’s sense of absurdity and paranoia.

Preceding “Devils,” at 7:30 p.m. in Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater, the 56-minute documentary “Railroad of Hope” follows hundreds of peasants from Sichuan as they jam-pack a train for the 1,900-mile ride to pick cotton in Xinjiang in northwestern China.

The passengers are among several thousand agricultural workers who hope to earn more in two months picking cotton than in harvesting grain at home. Many have never been aboard a train or even away from home, and almost certainly they have never been interviewed for a film. They are refreshingly outspoken (but have not been asked directly what they think of politics and government) and unassumingly self-sacrificing. Time and again, they say they are making the long journey for the sake of their children or parents.

Everyone agrees that taxes are too high in Sichuan in proportion to the meager profits in harvesting cereal grains, and an older man and woman assert that hardship stems from the corrupt local government in Sichuan. Among numerous people Ning speaks to in this most ingratiating and graceful film is a man who says that what is most important to him is autonomy and “living in dignity and honesty, even if modestly.”

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Screenings

‘Railroad of Hope’ and ‘Devils on the Doorstep’

When: Saturday, 7:30, 8:30 pm.

Where: Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater, near intersection of Sunset Boulevard, Hilgard Avenue, Westwood.

Info: (310) 206-FILM.