China’s censorship network has always been a problem for sixth-generation filmmaker Wang Xiaoshuai. In the early 2000s, he broke state policy with the submission of his excellent Beijing Bicycle to the Berlinale without prior authorization from China’s National Film Bureau where it eventually landed a spot in competition, won wide critical acclaim and international attention for its heartfelt portrayal of dispossessed youth. Chinese censors, however, were less fond of Wang’s method. It took nearly three years for Beijing Bicycle to screen in its home country. Since then, he has been deftly ducking blows from domestically brewed suppression; quietly establishing himself as one of China’s most important filmmaking voices over the past two decades. His newest work is called Above the Dust, and once again finds him repeating history in sly metaphorical fashion: For festival consideration, Wang surreptitiously submitted his feature without prior approval from China’s National Film Bureau.
There is an irony to this conflict that can never be satisfied; Wang’s latest film acts as a metaphysical time-travel story heavily indebted to his country’s unique cultural failures. Once again adapted from Li Shijiang’s short story “Grandpa’s Trick,” it represents another unconventional coming of age saga from this rebel auteur in which all the expected Wang signifiers are present and accounted for. With Above the Dust, though, we see late capitalism through adolescent eyes those of 10-year-old Wo Tu who only know how to shut out anything but their immediate surroundings in post-Mao China or just plain don’t care what came before them at all if forced to choose between consumer pleasures and ancestral inheritance. The inclusion of Great Leap Forward imagery suggests that even such historically catastrophic events might do little more than ruffle this kid’s featherweight conscience.
Above The Dust plays mischievously with literal versus internal: it buries Wo Tu’s family history beneath dusty relics and repressed desires. Ultimately, though, the film is for those who have spent the past few decades unearthing familiar memories in working class neighborhoods across China (and beyond). Within its vast trove of rich cultural references to Mao’s agricultural policies and systemic failures as both history lesson and indictment against our own ignorance, above the dust works well enough; yet when treated purely as fiction rather than historical fiction, it fails to deliver on its promises. The problem lies not so much with Wang’s failure to articulate a clear thesis through Wo Tu’s character or any other means but rather with his decision to make him such an ignorant little prick from beginning to end even at climactic moments where he should be feeling some kind of way about what just happened back there. It’s emotionally flatlining stuff. If anything, then: instead of being moved by this child’s final indifference toward homeland/ancestry after all has been said/done about them both already somewhere along the line hereabouts etcetera blahblahblah whatever wo tu whatever duh?
Above the Dust also works cleverly on paper as a deadpan critique of our generation’s collective obliviousness. However, on screen it fails to fully convey the heartbreak that comes with knowing your family will never be whole again because they were scattered across time like ashes in wind. While watching above the dust one cannot help but feel like they are being told a story about someone else’s pain someone whose skin color is different from theirs and whose language sounds strange when spoken aloud by anyone who isn’t fluent in Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese or whatever it was supposed to be anyway according whichever character had lines at given moment throughout entirety of film (s). But maybe I’m just reading too much into things again? Maybe this movie really is nothing more than an exercise in style over substance?
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