Where was the best place to spend the Covid-induced lockdown in 2020? According to Helene Zhuge’s documentary, Maizidian, the resounding answer: China. In the words of one of the interview subjects, the period of quarantine was in fact, “a beautiful memory inside my mind.” In order to make her point, Zhuge focused not on the experiences of Chinese citizens for the documentary, but on George, a Greek photographer and expat who’d been living for over a decade in Beijing with his Chinese wife. Over the course of the film, George visits with nine other expats from various parts of the world who all, for one reason or another, had decided to stay in China when the pandemic broke out. The overwhelming response from George and those he speaks with is that China handled the outbreak with phenomenal skill, speed and sensitivity.
China, as seen through George’s eyes, is a warm and welcoming place. George himself has wonderful relationships with various Chinese citizens. He has close friends who hope to join him in Europe for an exhibition. He’s traveled extensively across the country taking photographs. Those in the shops and restaurants are all delighted to see him.
Maizidian is a neighbourhood in Beijing with many consulates and a large population of foreigners. As such, it is the perfect place for George to make his investigation. He interviews an American who tells us he’s very glad to be in Beijing, where he feels safe, rather than in the US, which, he says, has had a disastrous response to the pandemic. George also meets with a Japanese chef who thanks his lucky stars that he’s in Beijing and not Japan. One man George speaks with was quite nervous about being stuck with his wife in his apartment for a fourteen day quarantine. But he found the volunteers and delivery people so helpful that the quarantine was really not very difficult. He was in fact so impressed that he decided to become a volunteer himself once his quarantine was over. We also spend some time with a police officer, who is always courteous and understanding with those she meets.
This is a film made for a non-Chinese audience with the clear aim of improving China’s image abroad. We see blue skies and fresh air over the skyline of Beijing, despite the city’s reputation for being highly polluted and frequent alerts due to dangerous air quality. A doctor from North Africa who moved to Beijing to study Chinese medicine declares that she trusts the Chinese government to do the right thing and take care of the population. Other note the presence of new surveillance cameras outside their homes. These are meant to monitor those under quarantine, but no one feels that their privacy is being trampled on because the government assured them that the cameras would come down after the pandemic. Documentaries, of course, must always have some sort of point of view. But the best ones tend to give the other side a hearing. Maizidian, by contrast, paints a wholly rosy picture of the situation in China. There is no dissent from the dominant opinion that China has in all cases and in all respects handled the outbreak very well. It is beyond the capacity of this reviewer to assess these claims, but one might have expected at least some interview subjects to have reservations about the Chinese handling of the pandemic.
The production company behind Maizidian is BON, or Blue Ocean Network. BON, in its own words, “is the first independent international media organisation to reach audiences around the world with a range of exclusive, English-language programming focusing on China.” Beyond this, it was difficult to find much information in English about the film, about George the photographer or Helene Zhuge, the director.
All in all, though, we do get a glimpse of China in a way that westerners mostly do not. These does seem to be a vibrant expatriate community that is quite comfortable and making a good living in Beijing. The city also comes off as much more cosmopolitain than we might expect. There is, of course, oolong tea and dumplings. But we also catch sight of delicious looking loaves of bread and Czech-style beer (made in China). Although Maizidian tends to take a one-sided approach, it is worth watching for the photography alone.
By: Darida Rose
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.