Wang Xiaoshuai returns to the Berlinale, depicting the dramatic migration from countryside to city, focusing on an entire village in northeastern China transitioning to urban life. This story is told against the backdrop of reminiscences of the “Great Leap Forward” a political-economic plan implemented by Mao Zedong from 1958 to 1961, which transformed rural family units into urban collectives and fueled the industrial development frenzy: it had devastating consequences, including tens of millions of deaths due to famine and disease. Once again, Xiaoshuai challenges censorship with Above The Dust presented in the Generation K-Plus section.
Notably, the film did not receive government approval through the Dragon Seal, underscoring the director’s turbulent relationship with Chinese authorities, whom he has never shied away from challenging.
Having garnered acclaim in Berlin in 2002 with Beijing Bicycle, in 2008 with In Love We Trust, and in 2019 with So Long My Son, Xiaoshuai makes a comeback to Berlin with Above The Dust, solidifying his position as a prominent artist in contemporary China. Renowned for addressing pressing social issues, from police procedures to the one-child policy to the Cultural Revolution era, with Above The Dust – showcased in the Generation K-Plus section – he remains faithful to this trajectory and his raw honesty.
In fact, the film poignantly reflects the impact of Mao’s urbanization policies while unflinchingly portraying the present decline of small rural realities and the pressures on the authorities to leave them.
He does so through the character of Wo Tu, the ten-year-old boy protagonist.
In a village devoid of water and with his father seeking an elusive fortune in the city, Wo Tu resides with his mother, little sister, and a deceased grandfather.
While looking for a way to get a water gun to play with his friends, the young boy delves into the distortions of past and present, blending reality and dream, as in the latter he encounters his ancestors and gains insight into his lineage and the complexities of his current surroundings.
The echoes of Mao’s enforced urbanization manifested through the dynamics of the village where his grandfather, a young party member, played a pivotal role, resonate in the boy’s current reality.
When awake, Wo Tu witnesses the slow emptying of his mountain village, where the wind blows strong and life is tough but somehow still pure, where one can play and run outdoors, despite poverty. A poverty that the director never sugarcoats. There are no embellishments to it, and the thirst for gold is told in all its dramatic ramifications, in the sweetest moments, like continuously praying to ancestors to reveal hidden family treasures underground, and in the most desperately ridiculous moments, like frantic digging under the dust that leads to trouble, envy, and other violence.
The so-called progress appears as a stream flooding the drought-stricken village, slowly draining it. There is no one left at school, no more neighbors, and when the young protagonist finally obtains the much-desired water gun, he has no one left to play with.
The ending seems to encapsulate the concept of injustice with the definitive absorption of the family into the city, and all it entails.
The mother no longer cooks for her own family but at a street stall, serving a crowd of strangers. It doesn’t seem like they have a better life, starting with the father with whom they are now reunited but who becomes a victim of a work accident, losing his legs. Yet even this has been buried by the persuasive power of money.
Buried like the lost family treasures, like that past which is not only collective history but the private history of many members of an entire people, buried like those rifles interred by great-grandfather but still functioning, perhaps symbols of a resistance that refuses to die.
Everything else, personal and social dynamics, work, transportation, everyday life, emotions, hope, dreams, and disappointments, flows right above this sand – above the dust – occasionally stirred up by the strong, tireless wind.
Just like in the final scene, where Wo Tu rushes to help the family, and as he puts away his clothes on the terrace of his new home, he gazes at the landscape. Motionless, we see him from behind as he observes a dreadful parade of skyscrapers.
From the mountain, from his mountain, ominous dark clouds are approaching, likely to bring a storm. The same storm now striking his old rustic house, where he grew up, protected only by his grandfather’s spirit.
Yet it is being demolished by bulldozers, to make way for something more profitable, more convenient, more in line with the times.
But once homeless, where will the spirits of the ancestors go?
Perhaps back under the dust?
© 2020-2024. UniversalCinema Mag.