What kind of messages do documentary films convey? Recently, Chinese documentary director Wang Bing has succeeded in finishing his monumental film "Dead Souls," which will be shown to the public for the first time in Japan this summer after its release was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The film has received a lot of positive reviews at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and other festivals.
Last October at the prestigious film festival in Yamagata Prefecture, the first screening in Japan of "Dead Souls" -- lasting over eight hours -- can only be described as a major development. At the Komian Club, where a lot of film directors and fans gather in the evening in Yamagata, there were rumors spreading about the movie.
"You may need to physically and mentally prepare yourself to see 'Dead Souls' from morning to evening," one person said.
"His interview ability is quite amazing," another person said.
Wang finally got his third top award, the Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize, and the Citizen's Prize at the festival.
The film showed those who were purged by the Chinese Communist Party's Anti-Rightist Campaign from the late 1950s and early 1960s during the Mao Zedong era. Many of those who were regarded as "rightist" because of their criticisms against the party, were sent to reeducation camps in remote areas, such as the Gobi Desert, and were forced to work under harsh conditions, which led to many starving to death. Even after the rightists were officially rehabilitated, Wang exposed a reality that was previously unknown to most. Wang's previous two films also related to this theme, and at a movie event in Tokyo in 2011, the director stressed the importance of remembering history by saying, "The real history is the one remembered by the people." His documentary works to preserve the forgotten history of China.
Wang interviewed over 120 survivors and bereaved families between 2005 and 2017 and shot about 600 hours worth of footage, which exposed their indescribable sorrow and suffering.
Toward the end of the film, a former guard of the camp was interviewed, who asked, "What would you do if you were confronted with inappropriate ideas and people doing the wrong thing but didn't have the power to change things yourself?" This question makes us think about what we would do under the same circumstances.
The last scene of the film is very moving. Wang stuns the audience by showing the former campsite, an environment that is more harsh and wild than they expected after listening to the survivors' interviews. The camera captures bones scattered around the area and the strong winds that seem to drown out the words of the dead.
"I understood the subject of 'Dead Souls' had to be the gap between the words of the survivors and the silence of the dead," Wang said in a statement for the festival.
At the festival, Indian director Anand Patwardhan also attracted a lot of attention from the audience with his almost four-hour documentary called "Reason." Even at 70 years old, he actively discusses social and human rights issues in India through his film making. Patwardhan's film looks into the background of four assassinations, including that of political movement leaders from 2013-17, how the expansion of Hindu fundamentalism has impacted religious minorities in the world's biggest democracy and the difficulties that India's long-standing traditions, such as rationalism and nonviolence, are facing.
Patwardhan's "Reason" is not being shown in theaters in Japan yet.
"I am glad that Wang Bing's 'Dead Souls' will get a good Japanese release. It is important to know about the atrocities that took place in the name of communism in the past. But it is equally important to know about present-day atrocities that are being committed in the name of capitalist states that swear -- at least on paper -- by democracy," Patwardhan said.
I think great documentaries cast a light on the lesser-known aspects of issues around the world, even if the methods of directors differ.
Wang's "Dead Souls" will be shown at Image Forum in Shibuya, Tokyo, from Aug. 1 to 14.
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