A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.
You might have heard a couple of years ago about a
Chinese artist and dissident who disappeared after several years of criticism,
through his blog and various art projects, toward the Chinese government,
specifically the state of government school buildings that collapsed in the
2008 Sichuan earthquake killing as many as 5,000 children. This documentary by
Alison Klayman presents Ai Weiwei as he is, faults and all: artist; activist;
protester; dissident; husband; father; philanderer. He is a big teddy bear of a
man with a portly figure and a long scraggly beard. He’s taciturn in most of
his interactions, but you can see his mind aflutter when he’s working. Most of
his art is produced by technicians who realize his visions.
The subtitle of the film refers to Weiwei’s refusal to
make apologies for any of his criticisms, a stoic and immovable disposition
that even carries over into his personal life in the form of an extra-marital
affair that resulted in a child. Throughout the film, he is continually
revealed as a man who believes wholeheartedly that incremental changes can be
made by a single man standing up to injustice. He is relentless in his pursuit of
reform, refusing to back down even when a police beating leaves him with a
severe brain injury requiring surgery, even when his official complaints are
predictably met with curt dismissals, even after months of imprisonment and
isolation designed to break his spirit. The more people are called to action by
Weiwei’s story, the sooner the Chinese government might see some more
significant changes.
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