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China Concerto

Wang Bo

Release year: 2012

Run time: 50 mins

Film type: Experimental Film

Synopsis

An observational essay about images, representations and performances in China's contemporary spectacles, shot mostly in Chongqing during the peak of Bo Xilai's red campaign in 2010 and 2011, which later ended as China's biggest political scandal after 1989. Concealed beneath the veneer of capitalism, aspects of communist totalitarianism persist today, both in economy and ideology.

 

Director biography

Bo Wang, born 1982 in Chongqing, China, is an artist and filmmaker currently based in Amsterdam.

Director's statement

The past two decades for China since 1989, has been a time of economic boom and social de-politicization. Drive for profit and progress seems to have been dominating social life. However, it is also crucial to be aware that the extensive capitalization is hybridized to retained aspects of communist totalitarianism. Not only on the economic level, in ideologies, influences from the Mao era never really faded away. They conceal themselves under a capitalist mask. The film takes a form of fictional letters about a man's encounters with all the images during his trip in China, narrated by a female voice with an untraceable accent. The focus of the film is images – images in a broader sense, as surfaces of the society. I believe the seemingly most mundane surfaces can possibly provide us a glimmer of re-looking at the basis of the duo-structure of China in the post-Tiananmen era.