Discovering a Chinese director who served time for his art...
Zhang Yuan’s Little Red Flowers saw cinema release in the UK this month, and is the first movie from this acclaimed, often rebellious, director to surface on British shores in quite some time. But one thing’s for sure, Zhang’s best films stand among the best and most powerful Chinese movies of the last fifteen years.
It’s difficult to believe perhaps, but true, that Zhang fell foul of the Chinese censors with his 1996 film East Palace/ West Palace in such a bad way that he was put under house arrest and had his passport confiscated. The film itself followed a young gay man attracted to a policeman who he contrives to interrogate him as an opportunity to get close. Making a film dealing with homosexuality apparently didn’t go down too well with the authorities, especially perhaps because one of the characters was a policeman. With the help of friends a print of the film was smuggled to the Cannes Film Festival, to a positive critical reception which only built his reputation outside China.
Relationships and the tensions within them, and China (and more specifically Beijing) in transition: these themes form the backbone of Zhang’s movies, right up to his newest work Little Red Flowers. Regarded as a member of the Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, those directors who came to prominence in the 90s following the Fifth Generation success of Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and others, Zhang Yuan (pictured above) debuted with the powerful Mama in 1992, the story of a single mother bringing up a mentally-handicapped son, which has been described as the first Chinese independent movie since the pre-Communist era, and cemented his style the year later with the edgy Beijing Bastards (pictured below), which starred real life Chinese musician Cui Jian - a popular cult figure in his own right - as the unnamed rock star in the lead role, and painted a vivid snapshot of contemporary Beijing. His next feature film Sons (1996) was a gritty exploration of the effect of alcoholism on a Beijing family. Following East Palace/ West Palace was the acclaimed Seventeen Years, which garnered Zhang the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival. The story of a girl imprisoned for killing her stepsister, the film explores the effect of her seventeen years away, and what happens when a prison guard accompanies her to track down her parents. As deeply affecting and hard hitting as Zhang’s other films, here was further proof of a masterly hand. And this is an impression only cemented by I Love You (2003), a gritty dissection of a young relationship and the pressures pulling it apart, and keeping it together, apparently often working against each other. Like Zhang’s other films, it carries a feeling of “truth” that few other filmmakers have succeeded in attaining. In between these projects Zhang completed several acclaimed documentaries: The Square (1994) looking at the daily goings-in in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Demolition and Relocation (1998) focusing on the wholesale destruction of old Beijing and the effect on its residents, and Crazy English (1999) a portrait of famous motivational speaker Li Yang, and also his own take on Chinese opera in Jiangjie (2002).
After a more light-hearted departure into romance with the relatively uncharacteristic, though entertaining, Green Tea (2004), Little Red Flowers sees Zhang reunite in collaboration with cult novelist Wang Shuo, who wrote the I Love You script and has enjoyed his own share of controversy in his time.
Departing from his previous works in that it is Zhang’s first period film - set in 1949 - Little Red Flowers (pictured left and article heading) has thematic links to Zhang’s other films, and to his overall approach to filmmaking. In the story of a four-year-old boy sent to a boarding school where he doesn’t fit in to the regimented environment, Zhang puts a refreshing spin on well-trodden themes, once again exploring the pressures that push in on people and how they react, succeeding in creating a simultaneously touching and thought-provoking new work.
