Directed by Bruce Beresford, Academy Award-winning director of Driving Miss DaisyTender Mercies and Breaker Morant, Mao’s Last Dancer stars Bruce Greenwood, Joan Chen, Kyle MacLachlan, and Chinese ballet star Chi Cao. The film screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September of 2009, and is set for a U.S. release this August 20, 2010. and such fine films as
The trailer (see below) for Mao’s Last Dancer makes it pretty clear that that the film depicts Chinese Communism in a harsh and uncompromising light. As the Hollywood Reporter notes in its early review, “what the aspiring, ‘Rocky’-like, against-all-odds dancer is escaping is not working-class ignorance and poverty, but hardline Chinese communist officials.” However, Hollywood Reporter gripes about the film’s politics:
“Like most films in this genre, pretty much everything is seen in black and white terms. Thus, despite the fact that the horribleness of America has been drummed into [Li] by Chinese propagandists since childhood (in scenes that are presumably meant to provoke laughter in knowing Western audiences), he finds on visiting that in fact, everything in America is “fantastic,” as he constantly puts it, and everything in China — except for his family — is very, very bad. He says he even dances better in America, because here he is “free.”
It’s ironic that Hollywood Reporter would complain about the film’s “black and white” depiction of things. I would think that it’s the Chinese Communists who behave in an absolutist, black and white manner. The film seems to simply depict this. As for this film being part of a ‘genre’ – what genre? There have been next to no films made in the Western cinema criticizing Chinese Communism in the last thirty or so years (the few I know of are Red Corner, China Cry, The Red Violin, and the upcoming Red Dawn) – so what genre exactly is this? Films that are honest about Communism … but that will be knee-capped by liberal critics? And finally, does the Hollywood Reporter writer really need to put the word ‘free’ in quotes, as if to question that there is any freedom in America? Why is it so surprising that a dancer would prefer dancing in a free, democratic America to performing under statist repression in Communist China?
At least the THR review concedes that Mao’s Last Dancer is crowd-pleasing entertainment:
“Beresford … knows exactly what he is doing at every moment, and most viewers will be more than happy to go along for the ride. … Distributors and programmers who are looking for a film that will move audiences, rather than deeply probe the meaning of life, should give “Mao’s Last Dancer” a serious look. This is the kind of film that critics may look down on but go on to win audience awards at festivals (and, presumably, make money at the box office).”
I am astounded that Mao’s Last Dancer even got made, and by a director as notable as Bruce Beresford. I wonder what subterranean shift is happening in the film industry that movies as critical of Communism as Mao’s Last Dancer and Red Dawn are being made. Are filmmakers finally getting fed up with Hollywood’s apologies for terrorism and dictatorship, and now want to make films standing up for freedom? Continue reading »
SOURCE: LIBERTAS FILM MAGAZINE
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