SOUL ON A STRING
C
China (142 mi) 2016
d: Zhang Yang
Following on the heels of the Russian revisionist film Paradise
(Rai) (2016), this is another example of a nation literally appropriating
another country’s language, land, and culture in an attempt to alter the
world’s perception of China, which is the occupying force in Tibet. Imagine the Nazi’s making a fantasy film in
French about Paris during their WWII occupation, Israel making a mythical film
in Arabic about the Palestinians during their armed occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza, or Britain making a film in Gaelic about the Northern Irish while
under British military rule in the 70’s.
A visually stunning film like this, with its panoramic vistas, has a way
of elevating one’s appreciation for the ravishing beauty we see onscreen, but
completely leaves out any background historical context. Mao Zedong’s Communist Nationalist army took
over Tibet in 1950, hailing the act as a liberation from an old, feudal system
that included both British and American imperialist influence. Resentment for the Chinese grew in Tibet over
the following decade with armed rebellions breaking out. In March 1959 the capital of Lhasa erupted in
a full-blown revolt, where asserting Chinese nationalism, anywhere from 200,000
to a million Tibetans were killed and approximately 6000 Buddhist monasteries
were ransacked and destroyed, forcing the Dalai Lama, the widely revered
Tibetan spiritual leader, to flee to India, where he has lived in exile ever
since. China’s assertion for its
territorial claim goes back to the 13th century, when both Tibet and China were
absorbed into the Mongol empire. Known
as The
Great Khanate, the empire contained China, Tibet, and most of East Asia,
becoming known as China’s Yuan Dynasty.
Throughout the Yuan, and subsequent Ming and Qing dynasties, Tibet
remained a subordinate principality of China, though it retained varying
degrees of independence. The Himalayan
mountain range provides a mountainous wall of strategic security for China,
while Tibet possesses a significant mining industry, also serving as a primary
water supplier. China has invested
billions into Tibet and flooded the nation with Chinese immigrants over the
past decade where its resources have been included in the economic development
plan for Western China known as China Western Development. Like the former satellite nations of the
USSR, all answering to Moscow, the needs of Tibetans, who are devout Buddhists,
residing in an economic zone described as a Tibet Autonomous Region, now answer to
Beijing, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and are under constant threat by
overzealous security forces. This
conflict of limitless spirituality and occupying military rule has resulted in
the self-immolation of more than 140 Buddhist monks in protest of Chinese rule
in Tibet since 2009, as documented by Tsering Woeser, a well-known Tibetan
writer and activist, Why
Are Tibetans Setting Themselves on Fire? | by Tsering Woeser ..., which
includes passages from Tsering Woeser’s Tibet
on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule, from The New York Review of Books, January 11, 2016.
That being said, one must be extremely suspect of how China
appropriates Tibetan culture, as it is just another form of political
exploitation. In the not too distant
past, China outlawed filming in Tibet, where actress Joan Chen defied Chinese
censors by shooting there in her directing debut film XIU XIU: THE SENT-DOWN GIRL (Tian yu) (1998), an overt
condemnation of the Cultural Revolution and winner of seven awards at the
Taiwanese Golden Horse Film Festival.
While there are current Tibetan filmmakers, such as Pema Tseden’s THARLO
(2015) or Sonthar Gyal’s RIVER (2015), who provide an authentic view of life in
modern Tibet, the rest of the world remains cultural outsiders. Films about ethnic minorities, and in
particular films about Tibet, are subject to special scrutiny in China, where
anything filmed in Tibet requires approval by the Tibet Committee of the United
Front Work Department which operates under the Communist Party’s Central
Committee — not just the state media regulator, as is the case with most
films. According to Shelly Kraicer,
Toronto film critic and scholar of Chinese cinema, “At the end of the day,
everybody is still using and exploiting images of Tibet.” Director Zhang Yang previously directed
overly commercial works like SHOWER (1999) and SUNFLOWER (2005), but before
making this film he decided to spend a few months living in Tibet in 2013,
where some of his experience is captured in the documentary PATHS OF THE SOUL
(2015), which follows the Werner Herzog template established in WHEEL OF TIME
(2003). While Herzog and his crew travel
to a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Bodgaya, India, Zhang, in a part documentary
and part fiction film, follows the journey of a group of Tibetan Buddhists on a
pilgrimage to Lhasa, the holy capital of Tibet, much of it reflected in
continuous repetition of prostrating one’s self on the ground. Zhang’s new film, where all of the actors in
the film are Tibetan and speak Tibetan, is based on a story by the prominent
Tibetan writer Tashi Dawa, drawing on Tibetan folk traditions and magical
realist elements as it follows the adventurous exploits of a man named Tabei
(Tibetan actor Kimba) who is brought back to life by a living Buddha after
being killed by lightning, offering him penance to cleanse his murderous past
and a chance for rebirth. The film
follows his elongated and roundabout journey, including a collection of
eccentrics he encounters along the way, as he pursues a mission to bring a Dzi
bead, or sacred stone, to a mythical holy land. Using a comical, over
exaggerated Sergio Leone spaghetti western style, the film continues to view
Tibet as a fairy tale land of fantasy and exoticism, leaving out any references
to ethnic abuse or signs of a culture repressed, as thousands of Tibetans are being
forced to leave their grazing land and an agrarian way of life that is
centuries old, replaced by Chinese bulldozers and more widespread pollution,
with fear gripping an occupied community, not to mention arbitrary arrests and
brutal detentions that continue without due process under Chinese communist
rule, including torture and shoot-to-kill policies in effect, many for
something so commonplace as flying the banned Tibetan Snow Lion flag.
The film is the exact opposite of that grim reality,
painting a picture of staggering opulence, like a reworking of Wong Kar-wai’s
visually luxurious ASHES OF TIME (1994), blending Buddhism with Western motifs,
set in endlessly vast desert landscapes, all captured in widescreen by
cinematographer Guo Daming, featuring sweeping aerial shots, Soul on a String by ZHANG
Yang - Trailer - YouTube (1:58). At
two and a half hours, this overlong yet epic journey of mythological
self-discovery combines two of Dawa’s best-known short stories from the 80’s, Tibet, a Soul Knotted on a Leather Thong and
On the Road to Lhasa, featuring a
prologue, a shoot-out, a battle-hardened, resurrected criminal on a new
mission, where he prefers to be a loner, but along comes a girl named Chung
(Quni Ciren), who leaves her sheep and goats behind as she’s smitten by his
strange appeal after a night in the same bed, remaining by his side throughout
the journey, followed by Pu (Yizi Danzeng), a dwarfish and peculiarly
mischievous mute with psychic powers.
Following them are two brothers, trigger happy Guori (Zerong Dages),
seen in the opening shoot-out, and the more measured older brother Kodi (Lei
Chen), as both vow to kill Tabei to avenge the killing of their father. However Guori has a habit of killing a
rotating cast of companions named Tabei, leaving behind a trail of wrongful men
named Tabei whose killings had nothing to do with the crime, which eventually
start to weigh on his karmic consciousness.
Also following him are Gedan (Siano Dudiom Zahi), a mysterious stalker
who seems to be recording the events on paper and may be the narrator, and
Zandui (Solange Nima), a lone wanderer with a goofy dog named General. Many of the secondary characters provide
comic relief, growing more ridiculous over time, where all are one-dimensional
characterizations, while the film, as resplendent as it may be, is little more
than escapist entertainment, featuring swordfights and honor codes that play
out in western lore, set against a backdrop of awesome visual splendor. It’s something of a confused curiosity where
recurring characters randomly cross paths, reaching for a strain of pop
mysticism, with the title referring to the leather string that Tabei wears
around his neck that holds the stone, as well as Chung’s habit of counting the
days of her romance by tying knots on a leather cord, where both, according to
Buddhist teachings, need to free themselves of all earthly burdens and
attachments. But that being said, while
it’s immaculately gorgeous, there’s really no successful resolution by the end,
as the journey simply ends. This may
remind some of Tarsem’s THE FALL (2006), a visually extravagant film shot in
twenty-five different countries over the course of four years, which is equally
breathtaking to look at, but it does a better job of conjuring up images from a
5-year old’s imagination, taking a kaleidoscopic trip literally around the
world, extending the limits of storytelling, and doing a better job of blending
fantasy and reality, ultimately becoming a much more intimate and rewarding
experience.
