Despite the new, "nicer" look that China is trying to
adopt for the 21st century, the fact still remains that the
country is still controlled by an oppressive government that
has no real interest in its people. That may sound like a
heavy political statement, but nothing less would do when
discussing Frozen, for the very essence of this film is
political dissidence. Filmmaker Xiaoshuai Wang had to hide
behind a veil of anonymity in order to avoid the possible
repercussions of making this illegal film. He is credited as
"Wu Ming" which loosely translates to "No Name", and the film
was banned in China for being independently made with no
government certificate.
The movie, supposedly based on
a true story, centers around Qi Ling, an artist living in
modern day China. He and others like him are prevented from
true artistic freedom by the stifling laws, and so he enters a
deep depression in which his art suffers. He conceives a
performance art piece in which he will go through "seasonal
burials," the last of these being an Ice Burial, which will
kill him. He decides that publicly committing suicide in this
manner is the purest way to make his artform come alive as
well as protest the lack of freedom in his country. While his
circle of friends understands what he is trying to do, his
parents and most adults he knows simply can't grasp it. Now,
revealing Qi Ling's death is NOT a spoiler. From the beginning
of the movie, it is apparent he WILL die. In fact, the entire
movie is basically a flashback of the events leading up to the
suicide.
Frozen is a unique movie in that,
right from the very beginning, we pretty much know how it will
end. To watch the film is to want to see the story of how this
young artist met his demise. One of the interesting facets is
the way adults are portrayed: for the most part, they cannot
understand anything about the youth artist groups because they
seem to think that the modern generation is somehow better off
than the older one. Using that logic, these kids should have
nothing to complain about. The adults obviously miss the
point, but their feelings are an accurate measure of how youth
involvement in political statements can be misunderstood by
those who are content.
While the story of Qi Ling is
intriguing, it lasts a little too long. Too much of the movie
is taken up by long silences and morbid discussions about
death and high art. I'll admit, about halfway through the
movie, I caught myself thinking, "Just hurry up and kill
yourself already." In the end, I realized that was a rash
reaction, but still, the extremely drawn out presentation of
the story is something of a flaw. I've seen films with lots of
long, philisophical moments (like any Andrei Tarkovsky or
Ingmar Bergman movie), but they balanced style with the need
for these moments. Frozen gives you no place to go,
however, and due to its low budget, is visually unimpressive.
These aren't major issues, but they do have a negative effect
when the film is mostly a poetic message.
From digitally
obsessed.com
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