What does China want? Pretty much the whole
world. They tried copying the best parts in Beijing World Park, as seen in Jia
Zhangke’s The World, but the results
are a little kitschy. However, they were much more ambitious and thorough when
secretly replicating the Austrian lakefront village Hallstatt, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. Both Chinese and Austrian observers wrestle with the cultural
significance of the Guangdong Hallstatt in Ella Raidel’s Double Happiness (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the
American Museum of Natural History.
When Hallstatt hotelier Monika Wenger
discovered her guest was a Chinese architect working to copy her picturesque
inn and the rest of the city’s picture-postcard market square, she was understandably
put out. After all tourism is her business. She has since resigned herself to
the situation, because what choice does she have? Hallstatt’s mayor chose to
embrace the project, hoping it would generate more Chinese tourist trade, but
that seems optimistic. Provocatively, one Beijing talk show host finds ironic
logic in the project, arguing since China has destroyed its past, it must now
copy other countries’ historical landmarks.
Yet, Hallstatt, China is just a jumping off
point for a larger consideration of urban planning—a noble pursuit Shenzhen
planner Wu Wenyuan finds nearly impossible because of the Special Economic Zone’s
explosive growth. Frankly, it is perfect example of the folly of centralized
planning. By the time her department’s Soviet-style long-range plans are
officially approved (a process that apparently takes years, not months), the
population projections prove to be hopelessly inadequate.
Frustratingly, there are questions beyond the obvious
issues of cultural appropriation Happiness
largely ignores, such as the environmental impact of the construction
process. The fact that the project was developed by the mining company China
Minmetals might not inspire tremendous confidence on that score, yet the
systemic environmental degradation of China is only tangentially referenced.
Also, the implications of copying the iconic architecture of the Evangelical
Church of Hallstatt without respect to its sacred function is problematic, but
churchy kind of stuff does not seem to interest Raidel.