Routledge Contemporary China Series, no. 179. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2018. ix, 193 pp. US$140.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-138-04745-7.
The objective of this book is to demonstrate the function of cinema and image production to archive memories, conserve the past, and rewrite history. In particular, it focuses on so-called “Sinophone” films and art projects in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China, given that these have produced “altering archives” in multiple and even contrasting dimensions of past and present, stemming from the conflicting political stances of these regions. In order to address the diverse complexities of cinematic culture and image production in these Sinitic language regions, this book brings together authors who are artists, filmmakers, curators, film critics, and literary scholars, aiming to blend eclectic methods of scholarly research, knowledge making, and art making into a new discursive space.
The editors highlight two interesting concepts in the introduction, which are also two of the most important themes of the book: “Sinophone” and “altering archives.” In an attempt to avoid cultural imperialism, instead of using “Chinese,” this book uses the terms “Sinitic” and “Sinophone” to describe the diverse linguistic and cultural communities in nations, including nations without political status, that are targeted in this volume. The editors nevertheless argue that China proper should be included under the umbrella of “Sinophone.” On the other hand, in contrast to Jacques Derrida’s definition of “archive” as a place where documents are held under some form of authoritative control, “altering archives” is a concept embodied by various forms of expression, including cinema and image production, that provide an unofficial way of “seeing” the past through aesthetic mediums. Interestingly, in addition to exploring independent production, this book also considers mainstream projects such as “rehabilitation” (pingfan) film and “main melody” (zhu xuanlü) film as exemplifying “altering archives” for the way they fabricate memories and twist authoritative narratives of history.
The book is organized into three sections and ten chapters. In chapter 1, Chris Berry discusses how the Cultural Revolution is remembered through personal experience, based on interviews with those who were moviegoers in Shanghai during that period of time. In contrast to the official narrative, his study shows that people indeed learned about fashion, trends, and the lifestyle of the petit bourgeoisie through watching movies during the Cultural Revolution. In chapter 2, Isabel Wolte explores whether and how ideological meanings have been modified following adjustments made in the “external packaging” of The Founding of a Republic, a well-known main melody film made in 2009. She also argues that main melody and commercial films have become indistinguishable under the impact of marketization in mainland China. In chapter 3, Agnes Schick-Chen introduces the rehabilitation film as a form of archive that historicizes political transitions in exegesis analysis. She argues that rehabilitation films preserve past and present ideology and swings in such ideology and have been used and interpreted as a space of representation for victims and their claims to what is usually identified as truth and justice. In chapter 4, Xinyu Lu focuses on the development of documentary film in China and its ability to alter the perception of historical events. In particular, she points out the legacy and impact of the filmmakers John Grierson and Sun Mingjing in China for mobilizing the medium of movies as a record to preserve reality. In chapter 5, Hongjohn Lin evaluates paradoxes and nuances embodied in selected archival artwork to reveal their politico-aesthetic significance. His study outlines parallel readings between artistic and social archives, high- and low-brow culture, modern and contemporary, and between Euro-American and Asian-Sinophone, aiming to investigate how and what formats, techniques, and methods of archiving are used (and abused). In chapter 6, Chieh-jen Chen introduces his own video work as a political archive to rewrite colonialism. He also juxtaposes inaccessible archives of the past with today’s technological accessibility. In chapter 7, Yu-lin Lee investigates the ability of digitalization to “alter” history by focusing on the restoration in digital archives of documentary films made in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. In chapter 8, Hsiao-yen Peng explores how the traditional way of storytelling recedes and an alternative form of narration surfaces in Wong Kar-wai’s Mood Trilogy through gazes, gestures, bodily performance, visuality, materiality, captions, and music. In chapter 9, Ella Raidel argues that the past in Malaysian-born Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s oeuvres continually reconfigures itself as a loss of origin. She argues that Chineseness is presented not as an authentic beginning, but as an altered plot of cultural translation in language and pop culture such as cinema, literature, and music. In chapter 10, through analyzing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by Ang Lee, Hero by Zhang Yimou, and The Grandmaster by Wong Kar-wai, Sandy Hisu-chih Lo shows that the imaginary world of jianghu (literally, “concealment in a murky world of water”) represents a heterotopia full of limitless possibilities. She believes that wuxia (martial arts) films are able to cross language and culture barriers and form a type of mass culture that articulates fantasy while initiating new historical perspectives. Her study shows how wuxia films present hidden history and develop new ethics and collective identities by exploring universal human values, thereby creating a place for lively and active cultural discourse through incorporating more diverse modes of thinking in various dimensions of knowledge, power, ethics, and personal experience.
Overall, this book contributes to our understanding of how Sinophone cinema and image culture exhibit the politics of memory in the way they conceptualize individual and collective selves in tandem with the working of the state apparatus, demonstrating at the same time how new developments in technology have contributed to their ability to do so. This book will serve as a significant reference for researchers interested in such questions in the fields of film studies, East Asian studies, and Sinophone studies.
Shuk Ting Kinnia Yau
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China