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May 23, 2016

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Producer’s desperate video stunt hints at bleak state of Chinese arthouse cinema

CHINA’S film industry has been buzzing recently about an arthouse flop that rose from the ashes thanks to a viral video starring its producer.

“Song of the Phoenix,” a small budget film released in early May, earned a paltry 1.54 million yuan (US$235,000) at the box office in the week following its premier.

Bad timing was largely to blame for this lackluster performance, since its release date put it in competition with blockbusters like the latest “Captain America” installment, which came out around the same time. What’s more, many theaters screened the film only twice a day.

In an apparent act of desperation, its producer, 63-year-old Fang Li, posted a video online in which he dramatically falls to his knees and begs theater managers to set aside more screening slots.

His pleas, surprisingly, led to an abrupt turn-around for the struggling film. As of May 18, the film had grossed about 30 million yuan at the Chinese box office. Industry insiders expect its final take to exceed 40 million yuan.

Although a time-honored Chinese proverb dissuades men from losing dignity by getting down on their knees, Fang’s move worked well in an age when staged antics have become a great way to get attention.

Nonetheless, the film’s surprising success can do little to comfort those who really care about the future of arthouse cinema in China.

There is no denying that the Chinese movie market has seen a golden period over the past few years, experiencing explosive growth in both the number of films produced as well as box office revenues. Yet many small budget indie films have missed out on the bonanza.

To be sure, in any market there will be winners and losers, but the fate of quite a few cinematic losers seems predetermined. Thanks to rising film-marketing budgets and cheerleaders in the media, what audiences are advised to see on the big screen is largely a product of careful financial calculation. Works with less bright financial prospects are, naturally, given the cold shoulder.

Whatever buzz “Song of the Phoenix” got prior to its release surely pales in comparison with the fanfare that preceded the premier of the latest “Captain America” movie. Less buzz means less screening time, which in turn results in a diminished box-office take. And past box-office results influence what types of films get made in the future. It’s a vicious cycle.

Compounding the commercial straits of many arthouse films is the reluctance of investors to fund works they think are too “niche” to appeal to the largest common denominator.

If anything, Fang’s act of desperation is not without precedent. In a public letter addressed to movie-goers in 2015, director Wang Xiaoshuai, a representative of China’s so-called sixth-generation filmmakers, besought them in grave tones to see his film “Red Amnesia” (2014). Wang’s pleas were for naught. The film was a commercial flop in its home market despite its nomination for the Golden Lion Award at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.

Fall through the cracks

Many of us tend to place our faith in word of mouth, believing that the oldest form of mass communication will promote good things that cannot afford to hire a spokesperson. But in an age characterized by information overload, we often struggle to sort through piles of trash to get to the tiny bits of useful information. In the process, some good works fall through the cracks.

One of my favorite arthouse directors is the Turkish-born Nuri Bilge Ceylan. His works, such as “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” (2011), may seem dull in the eyes of many viewers. His long, meditative films lack the violence, gore and sex one often finds in Hollywood pictures. But the absence of these elements is, in my view, more than compensated for by his artful storytelling and direction.

Although Ceylan is a fixture at Cannes and a multiple-time laureate of the Palme d’Or, I doubt Chinese distributors would take the risk to purchase screening rights for his films, for the risk of their investments going down the drains is simply too real.

Many observers are in favor of setting up arthouse theaters to allow non-celebrity directors to show works that are snubbed by mass-market cinemas. This is a great idea.

Prostrating oneself might work occasionally to stoke the sympathies of cynical cinema managers, but regular, institutionalized screening time would be a fundamental solution to revive the fortunes of the arthouse genre.

Criticizing cinema-goers as philistines unable to appreciate fine art will not make life any easier for arthouse cinema. Instead, I believe viewing tastes can be shaped. Once the genre is seen as intellectually enriching, or just fashionable, it is bound to see a larger following.

Just like Jiao, the protagonist in “Song of the Phoenix,” who goes on a quixotic quest to inculcate his two disciples with the increasingly lost art of suona playing (the suona is a traditional wind instrument widely used in folk music), it would be similarly tragic if acts of desperation are the only way to draw attention to arthouse films.




 

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