A
cop who collects Cultural Revolution-era pre-execution photos must sound like
one scary cat, but Li Wen does it with a sense of irony. To keep the peace, he
will hunt a supposedly mentally disturbed troublemaker, who might just be an
eccentric gadfly the powers-that-be find inconvenient. Everything about the
copper and his latest case are both fake and real, making Luo Li’s meta-meta-hybrid
documentary Li Wen at East Lake (trailer here) a perfect
selection for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual Art of the Real
series of aesthetically challenging docs.
Following
in the recent tradition of independent Chinese cinema, Li Luo does not exactly rush
into his narrative. Instead, establishes a sense of East Lake, one of the few
remaining inland lakes in the hyper-developed Wuhan metropolitan district. Legend
has it, a dragon once rose from the lake to wreak fiery, purifying vengeance. A
sort of Holy Fool seems to be peddling that story again, which is bad for state
socialist-crony capitalist business, so Li Wen and his deputy must track down
the rabble-rouser. Yet, either their quarry is surprisingly elusive or Li Wen
is not feeling especially motivated, because it will take quite some time.
If
ever there was a film whose sum of its parts is greater than its whole, it
would be LW@EL. There are a number of
boldly pointed scenes, some of which even get quite intense. Unfortunately,
there is an awful lot of sketchy and sluggish connective material, ostensibly
holding it together, but really just watering down the overall cinematic
experience.
Nevertheless,
when it is on, it scores impressive points. This is especially true when Li Wen
argues with a gender and sexuality identity-studies grad student—a sequence
that is as funny as anything you will see in a major studio release this year.
Yet, there is also a very serious subtext critiquing the Communist government
and state media’s hostility towards LGBT citizens. Likewise, Li Wen’s rather
frank discussions regarding the Party and the Cultural Revolution (which
officially never happened) are far from flattering. In fact, we eventually
learn he was once a modernist artist, but now Li Wen paints motel-worthy
landscapes as brown-nosing offerings for his uncultured superiors.
Piling
on the meta-ness, Li Wen the copper-painter is played by Li Wen the real life
painter and occasional actor, previously seen as the title character in Luo Li’s
Emperor Visits the Hell. As his
namesake, he shows considerable range, in the unlikeliest of ways. He shows off
some razor sharp comedic timing, while also conveying profoundly sad awareness
of current injustices and the weight of historical tragedies.
