Lijia Zhang's Blog, page 23

Escape from Mogadishu

The Tale of a Hero

I’ve arrived in Udine in north-eastern Italy to attend Far East Film Festival. My stay here has kicked off in high note.
Last night, I watched Escape from Mogadishu, a South Korean blockbuster set in the civil war in Somalia in the end of 80s and early 90’s. Based on real life events, the film is centered on the improbable story of diplomats from South Korea and North Korea working together to escape from war-torn Mogadishu. Both groups seek help from the Italian embassy, which enjoys a good relationship with the Somalia government. The charismatic ambassador Mario Sica manages to break a ceasefire and allows both groups and other foreigners stranded by the war to travel to the airport where a Red Cross plane takes them to safety.
I am usually not a fan of action movies, and I still found certain aspects of the film unsatisfactory, the cheap humour, the Hollywood style car chase and unconstrained violence. Yet overall, I found it rather interesting. The best part is the tension between the two Koreans. After the Northern Embassy was robbed, the staff members, led by the ambassador, first turn to the South Koreans for help. After much hesitation, the South Korean Ambassador Kang opens its door, partly because the N. Koreans have a few children with them. Kang’s wife is extremely nervous as she’s heard rumour that the North Koreans train their children to kill. Meanwhile, the North Koreans worry that they may be taken as defectors. Until the outbreak of the war, the two Koreans have fought a bitter war to win the favour of the Somalia president in their bid to be admitted by the United Nations.
Interestingly, the festival organizer managed to get Ambassador Mario Sica, who has now long retired with many honours, to the festival. It was him who introduced the film to the packed audience.
After the screening, the organizers threw a small dinner in his honour. And I had the fortune to be invited (thanks to my charming and well-connected friend Pio, I guess). Over the dinner, I asked him about the civil war in Somalia. The ambassador said although the situation was not as bad as depicted in the film, but it was really dangerous, volatile and unpredictable. Both the government and the rebel forces didn’t always keep their promises.
Of course, I asked him if he had written a book about it. And of course, he did, two years after the event. Being a diplomat, he had to ask for permission and it was at first rejected because of the sensitivity. When a new foreign minister came around, he finally got the permission to publish the book titled Operation Somalia.
Intrigued, I looked him up on google and found a NYT piece published in 1991. “The Italian Ambassador, who is manning the only operating embassy in the embattled Somali capital, Mogadishu, said today that Government forces and rebels continued to fight with neither side holding an edge.” It said. The piece gave a good sense what the perils they were facing. Well, I sat next to a real hero. What an evening!

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/world/deadly-impasse-said-to-go-on-in-somali-city.html

China’s soft power derailed by it stance on the war

Pordenone film festival

Greetings from Pordenone, which is a small but sweet town just north of Venice. (There are many such lovely places across the country.)

I am here for a film festival. It kicked off yesterday and a fabulous documentary Ascension by American-Chinese director Jessica Kingdom was screened in the evening. Right after the screening, a panel discussion followed. I was on stage with my Italian journalist friend Pio, and sinologist Giada Messetti, who was on Zoom. It went well. Well, all three of us got so much to say about the film, China and the Ukraine crisis.

I loved Ascension. It is rather unusual, in a sense that there is no narration and no voice over. A bunch of images, shot at 50 locations across China, are artfully strung together. They tell the story of China’s hyper capitalism. It explores the China dream through different social classes, migrant workers, growing middle class and the super rich.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(film)

Plenty of good films to watch. I enjoyed a Ukraine documentary This Rain Will Never Stop, following a Ukraine/Kurdish Red Cross aid worker in Donbas during the war. After the screening, the young lady director Alina Gorlova, who is staying in Kyiv, addressed the audience. She spoke eloquently, in English, about the film and her life in Ukraine now and her effort in documenting the war. She became emotional when she was given ‘The Image of Courage’ award, deservingly. And everyone present was moved, too.

Graduation

Durham on Monday was a grey day, but my world was brightened up by my beautiful younger daughter Kirsty who had her graduation ceremony then. She had studied human geography at Durham University.
How I am proud of my little girl, who has grown from that little timid girl into day’s tall and confident young woman. She even brought her divorced parents together – for the day, haha!

Putin documentary

I’ve just watched the BBC documentary Putin: the New Tsar, which charts the dictator’s unstoppable rise to power. I am impressed by the extraordinary collection of participants, which includes Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster turned political opponent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch, Sergei Pugachev, a former member of Putin’s inner circle, Mikheil Saakashvili the former president of Georgia and interestingly, a professor of psychology. It is a brilliant portrait of a narcissist man’s addiction to absolute power.

It was made in 2018, but totally relevant today. If you watch it, you’ll understand why he launched the invasion of Ukraine. As the chess master predicted at the beginning of the documentary: “Putin will invade. The only question is when and where.”

Unfortunately, his prediction has turned out to be true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin:_The_New_Tsar

Chinese media and the invasion

China Media Coverage of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

“The first casualty of war is truth.” How true!

I’ve been following China’s coverage with fascination and disgust. Although China claims to be neutral on the matter and even offers itself as a peace maker, its media coverage has more or less been following the Russian line. To start with, instead of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is termed as ‘Russian and Ukraine conflict’. It hardly mentions the immense suffering of the civilians in Ukraine or its people’s incredible courageous resistance, which moved the people around the world.

When Russia made false claim that Pentagon has been financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine, China reported it as truth. How dangerous it is! Putin may use it as a false flag to use biological weapons. Here’s NYT’s report on the issue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/us/politics/russia-ukraine-china-bioweapons.html

How ridiculous that China now blames the U.S and Nato for the invasion. See attached the screen shot of the Chinese article.

A professor Zhang Wenmu from Beihang University, a nationalistic academic, penned a piece “Why has Ukraine Nazi-ized”. There’s a lot of discussion on the topic on the internet. Again, it is ridiculous! The Ukraine president Zelensky is a Jew. Why would he want his country to Nazi-ized?

There’s been a lot of fake news. From a group on Wechat called Friends in London, someone posted a video clip about a week ago, showing Putin crying over the death of Russian soldiers and when their bodies were carried back to Russia, the ordinary people knelt down on the road side, to show their respect. Completely false! If Putin cares about his soldiers, he wouldn’t have sent them over to Ukraine. He is a narcissistic who is utterly indifferent to human sufferings.

Besides, although the Russian people have been fed lies, most of them don’t really want the war. In Meknes, I met a Russian couple who were on holiday in Morocco. He said only about 10 % of Russians, mostly uneducated or in rural Russia, supports the war. The couple themselves hate the war, but nevertheless have felt the negative impact on them. They had to take US dollar cash with them as they are unable to pay with their visa card. The Morocco holiday might be their last foreign trip for a long while. “We’ll become like the North Koreans, isolated in the world,” the husband, an advertising executive, said gloomily.

On the positive side, some honest Chinese academic have expressed their dismay over the invasion. I mentioned this in an earlier post.

Also, two ordinary Chinese guys, Old Zhao (老赵 lǎo zhào) and Wáng Jíxián 王吉 have been posting videos from Ukraine, showing the terrible suffering of the ordinary people in Ukraine. One of them said that he is running a risk of being labeled as a spy, still he’d like to show the Chinese people the truth.

I am travelling in Morocco. Like some countries in Africa, Morocco, fearing of upsetting Rusian, chose to abstain in the UN General Assembly’s vote. People are really worried, mainly about the negative economic impact on the country. One guide said some Moroccans believe that there might be a third world war between the west and the allies among Russia, China and North Korea!

Alas, would the Chinese leaders really want that?

I do hope our leaders will behave like a responsible world leader and show its human face!

My oped on wives trafficking in China

Recently, a viral video shocked, fascinated and enraged China. In the clip, the woman, looking dazed, had a metal chain – the type used to chain dogs – tied around her neck and she lived in a shabby hut without a door in a village in Xuzhou, wearing thin clothing in freezing temperatures. It emerged that she produced eight children with a man in his mid 50’s who claimed to be her husband. Here’s my oped on China’s wives trafficking. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3167950/china-must-act-end-trafficking-and-sale-women-public-outrage-not

My oped – why I support China’s hosting of the Olympics

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3163282/why-china-deserves-host-2022-winter-olympics

In a few weeks, China will be hosting the 24th Winter Olympics in Beijing. Here’s my rationale why I support it. I know many of my friends and acquaintances may raise their eyebrows, but I think the Olympic Games are all about sports and people. If the Chinese people want it, then I am all for it. We have to differentiate between the Chinese people and the government.

If you have strong views on this, I’d be very happy to hear.

My review of movie The Tragedy of Macbeth

It can’t go too wrong with Macbeth. With its intriguing plot line, it has all the essential ingredients to make a good story/film, power, murder, treachery, witches and prophecies. There have been quite a few of Macbeth film already. I’ve seen Polanski’s 1971 version and Kurosawa’s 1957 loose adaptation Throne of Blood, which shifts the setting from 11th century Scotland to 6th century Japan.

Now I watched another one – The Tragedy of Macbeth, directed by one of the Coen brothers and starring by Denzel Washington. The characters speak old fashioned English, which makes it difficult for me to follow sometimes. Overall, it is an outstanding production. Though a pared-down version, it catches the essence of the story with some very creative twists: the three witches becomes one who can pull her body into improbable positions. A rather imposing man with natural authority, Washington seems to be born to play the tragic lead. The way he mumbles sometimes reflects his vulnerability and his inner turmoil.

Frances McDormand is a fantastic actress, but I found her performance here too measured and there isn’t anything new or nuanced in her portrait of Lady Macbeth, partly because she has not been given enough stage time, yet the role needs that time. The character can easily fall into the stereotype – a power-thirsty woman who drives her husband to murder and is the source of all evil.

Apart from the witch, I found the character Ross intriguing. This shifty eyed Scottish nobleman is a messenger of some sort. In the opening scene, he brings Macbeth the news that Duncan has made him the Thane of Cawdor. He hangs around at the court at lot, but in the end, he turns against Macbeth and joins Malcolm to topple him.

At times, I felt I was watching a play – well, it is based on a play, but the production makes the most of what a film can offer. In black and white, the cinematography is stunning. The shadows, shifting patterns and desolate landscape all emphasize the tragic and melancholic mood.

I am going to watch the version by Orson Welles.

My review of Driving my car

Upon the recommendation of several friends, I watched a Japanese film Driving My Car, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Wow, it is by far the best film I watched in the past years. Based on a short erotic story Men Without Women, by Murakami, the director, a rising star, greatly expanded and enriched the story and turned it into a 3- hour-long feature, but I never felt it dragged at any point.
It tells the story of a recently widowed actor and theatre director Kafuku going to Hiroshima to direct a multi-languages play Uncle Vanya. There he meets a young woman who drives him around. She, too, has a traumatic story of her own. Their shared suffering and their sense of guilt bring them close. But there is no romance between them, as I expected (I have a bad habit of trying to predicting what happens next while watching a film.) Driving My Car is about love, loss and life and more. Chekov’s play is perfectly intervened with the lives of the characters involved.
At the workshop, Kafuku casts a famous TV star but a troubled character as Uncle Vanya, even though he knows that this younger man had an affair with his wife Oto, a successful screen writer who had a quirky habit of crafting stories while having passionate sex.
All the characters are well-developed. One important character is his vintage Saad, red in colour – the symbol of passion. Kafuku loves to practice his line while driving, listening to cassette tape recorded by his wife. It is his sanctuary of some sort. Some key scenes take place inside the car, but the confined space never feels boring or restrictive.
I have some reservations about certain details: how could anyone gets story ideas while having sex? Also I have some questions about the last scene when the driver finds a dog, that belongs to a dumb Korean actress, in the back of the red Saad. I guess the director’s message is: Keep on living and life is beautiful.
It is a quiet master piece that will stay with you for a long while. Please go to see it while is on cinema in London.