Dear Internet,
Today's
movie was "The Founding of a Republic," a 2009 Chinese film about the
country's founding back in 1949. It was
made to commemorate the 60th anniversary, was commissioned by a state owned studio,
and backed by the Communist Party. If
none of that screams propaganda film, then you might want to make a full stop
here. Propaganda films and other media are
a tricky kind of think to examine. For
one thing, they may just be total crock and lying to the audience. This is the kind that North Korea has become
infamous for, telling the people that Kim Jong Il's birth was herald in by a
new star shining in the sky while a double rainbow also appearing. There is propaganda that is so filled with
ham acting that one wonders if anyone ever thought it would be effective, like
the training tapes big box companies make their new workers watch where everyone
is mysteriously smiling all the time as if someone spiked the break room with
who knows what. Propaganda material is
supposed to do one thing. It is supposed
to illicit an emotional response in favor to the issue that it is advocating.
The central
historical plot "Founding" is something that I am not familiar with
at all. I know very little of China's
history, so I will not pretend I do. Nor
will I go and spend five hours on Wikipedia article jumping so that I can
follow the movie. As both a film and as
a piece of propaganda, "Founding" should have this at its core. It should be able to take a viewer through
everything that they should know. From
the characters, to the setting, to the background of the plot, and to the
various other aspects that flesh out the narrative. "Founding" does not do this much at
all. It gives little to no premise
structuring and instead jumps headlong into the story without establishing
characters and setting. Are we supposed
to be following Chairman Mao? Or the guy
leading the KMT? Wait, what exactly is
the KMT? The film speeds through the beginning
so quickly that exposition seems like an afterthought. This might be because the film starts in
media res, but that does not excuse itself from assuming the audience knows
everything that the film covers. If
someone knew enough about the time and individuals, then there is no point in
them watching the film to learn what they already know.
The
story goes so fast that there is next to no rest to digest the information that
is thrown at the viewer. The plot goes
from about 1945 to 1949. Those four or
so years are so jam packed with events that the film cannot juggle all of
it. There were so many cease fires,
peace treaties, foreign dignitaries, scene jumps across the country, names
being dropped with little to no context, and one scene cameos that it all
became too big to handle. When a
character is introduced, it is difficult to determine their importance in the
film because there are so many of them. Some
go long periods until they show up again unexpectedly, and the film all the
while hopes you remember all of the characters.
There are so many political groups active in the film or are referenced
to that by the end of it, I still do not know who was with which group. The film fails to make itself coherent
throughout the majority of the film.
For the
majority of "Founding," the plot revolves around the political dealings
of the various individuals that are plenty forgettable. Every now and again, it tries to remind the
audience that a civil war is occurring. It
does this by spicing in large scale battles with a cast of hundreds running,
marching , and dying on fields with cannons spitting the earth beneath
them. Each of these spiced scenes are
shot in sepia which only highlight the fact that they are not part of the
regular story. These shots feel as if
they were stock footage or were taken from another movie. It is almost as if there had been a war movie
that fell through for one reason and another, and the studio felt that they
needed to use the film that they had shot to at least make up for the money
they had poured into the failed movie.
There is no point in even having these shots in the film. They do not add anything to the narrative
since it is so obvious that they have nothing personally to do with the
characters presented. None of the
characters are shown fighting in the trenches or even near any of the battle
scenes. The film tries numerous times to
show that Mao was leading a fighting force, but the closest scene we get in the
film to him being anywhere near the fighting is when the village he is staying
in gets bombed. Some cook dies, I
think. I cannot even remember. It might have made more of an impression on
me if they did not introduce the cook ten minutes prior just to kill him off.
The
biggest problem for "Founding" is just how boring it is. It attempts to disguise itself behind its
historical setting, but fails to do anything about the overabundance of
rhetoric. Too many people talk
throughout this film. Not enough physical
action occurs as the film progresses.
Even when some people die, it is talked about instead of shown. When action occurs in this film (protestors
get shot or beat up for instance), it never feels like it has much bearing on
the plot. Throughout the length of the
film, I had great difficulties detraining what exactly was going on because it
never felt like anything WAS going on. There
were things here and there that I thought the movie was going to make a big
deal about, but it constantly felt like they were getting swept under the rug
because the film realized it had to keep moving along if it wanted to cover everything within the
four years of the plot.
I would
call "Founding" is a bottom line average film. It fails to create any emotional response or
even an entertaining story. Perhaps if I
knew more about the history of China, it might make more of an impact on me, but
as a film this was part of its duty. A
film, book, play, or whatever is supposed to introduce its audience to the
world it tries to depict, especially if it is a historical piece. If it makes the assumption that the viewer
already knows the intricate history behind the story, then it gets rid of the
reason to tell the story in the first place.
You would not tell a professor who specializes in the history of India
about the nuances of the social impact of the East India Company on the 18th
century individual. The professor would
already know about such things and give you a glazed over stare. The only reason that I do not rate this film
lower is because it could not make me hate it. Again, it is just boring. It is boring to the point where I am unable
to hate or dislike it.
"Founding" was unable to make me care one way or another. If I want to watch a good propaganda film that
has a sweeping narrative that actually is able to move me despite its obvious nationalistic theme, I would watch "From
5AM to 5PM" of North Korea origin, double rainbows and all.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
P.S. Tomorrow's review is
"The Ramen Girl."
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