Today we had a very interesting guest lecturer, Paul Byrnes. He gave us an overview of Asian cinema, specifically from Japan and the three Chinas (main land China, Taiwan, and Hong-Kong). I had not realized before the lecture that because countries were industrialized in very different spans of time, its influence and representation in art varies significantly. Thus, the same kind of nostalgia and hate against industrialization that is found in Western painting could be found in Asian films a hundred years later.
Moreover, because I have a lot of Chinese close friends, I have always noticed the big gap that we have regarding the way we both think and see the government. Coming from Venezuela, a country that for the past ten years has undergone significant political turmoil, I cannot imagine not feeling distrust and being critical toward the government. However, my Chinese friends have never criticized their government nor their repressions. Thus, I thought it was very interesting to find out that there are many Chinese and Asians that do not approve this, which is expressed through their artistic projects. However, because a word in Chinese can mean more than one thing, it is extremely difficult to notice such subtle criticisms in their films. In addition, it was quite shocking the story he related us about a Chinese director whose work was banned and three years later became the head of the Chinese film department.
No comments:
Post a Comment