By Mike Faloon
With most documentaries, I focus on content more than process; if the topic's interesting, I'm in. Most of the time. With Yang Ban Xi, the topic is a chip shot: a documentary on the absurdist propaganda movies produced during China's Cultural Revolution ('66-'76). Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, a member of the Gang of Four (she started on bass but later switched to rhythm guitar) banned traditional Chinese operas and oversaw in their place a series of musicals that combined MGM spectacle with overt communist propaganda (not the wishy-washy pre-HUAC stuff that bogged down Hollywood). People dancing with rifles and singing the praises of fighting the good fight and laborin' for the good of the people. An hour of highlights of the 8 Model Works (of the 13 musicals produced during the Cultural Revolution the eight most popular movies were deemed "Model Works") would have kept me in my seat, but director Yan-Ting Yuen also interviewed key figures involved with the making of the 8 Model Works--actors, dancers, writers, and musicians. (Not even communists want to talk to crew members, apparently.) Their stories are amazing. In particular, the woman who relates how, after the fall of the Cultural Revolution, she was forced to work in a factory and her co-workers claimed that she didn't deserve a raise because of her perceived close ties with the Gang of Four. Yet even more telling are their current circumstances; they talk about being treated like pop stars during their time but now most of them reside in the tiniest, though remarkably well-kept, apartments. With so much going for it, what gums up Yang Ban Xi? First there is the overly ironic narration (provided by an actress, always shown in shadows, playing Jiang Qing (the real Jiang Qing committed suicide in 1991). Second are the incongruous music videos, for lack of a better term, that are meant, I suppose, to show what music is like in contemporary China. The narration is a repeated joke that never works and the videos are jarringly out of place. (At first I thought the projectionist had made a mistake.) In the end, if you love Chinese history and/or musicals, there's enough to see you through. Everyone else will spend half of their time reaching for the "fast forward" button.
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