It
is a documentary that inspired a very unique and personal multimedia dance
project, but the film itself is a relatively straight forward work of oral
history. When dancer Wen Hui returned to her father’s ancestral village in
search of her roots, she found more than she expected. Her name is Su Mei Lin
and she is Wen’s great aunt, or “third grandmother.” Her experiences pre- and
post-Maoist collectivization are often harrowing, but she survived to tell her
tale in Wen’s Listening to Third
Grandmother’s Stories, which screens as part of Cinema on the Edge, a
retrospective tribute to the Beijing Independent Film Festival now playing in
New York at Anthology Film Archives.
Su
Mei Lin lived through challenging times, even before the so-called “liberation.”
A child bride at age twelve, she was at least allowed a few years to mature
before she and her considerably older husband started their family. However,
she would divorce her faithless spouse at the tender age of twenty, even though
such legal action was nearly unheard of at the time. Unfortunately, she was
still living amid his family, who had the unfortunate distinction of being “landowners”
at a time of state-sponsored insanity.
In
some ways, Su Mei Lin’s story serves as a corrective to the residue of Maoist
propaganda that summons up images of feudal landlords grinding the peasants under
their economic boots. Yet, as Wen’s grandmother explains, their family had
little money, because they had scrimped and saved to buy their considerable
land holdings. Instead of reaping the benefits of their sacrifice, they were
branded exploiters, stripped of every last stitch of their possessions, and in
some cases, forced to undergo self-criticism sessions.
Still,
Su Mei Lin endured. While it is sometimes difficult to revisit the past, the
satisfaction of sharing with her previously unknown “granddaughter” is
obviously rewarding for her. In fact, it is rather nice to watch their rapport
together. We can also see the seeds of Wen’s choreography for a subsequent performance
piece based on the documentary in the ways she stages poses with her great aunt.
Sometimes it is a little eccentric, as when she ties their hair together, but
the older woman is a good sport.
