Ben Ming Nian (1990)

The opening sequence of Black Snow is magnificent. A handheld camera follows the walking steps of a young Beijing man as he emerges from the subway and wends his way through the narrow lanes of a hutong. He is on his way home from prison and this walk takes him deeper into his rabbit hole of a room, a crowded in space hidden within cramped laneways; his refuge from a changed world. The atmosphere is edgy and restless, the city is on the brink of rebellion in the form of the 1989 Student Movement, and Xie Fei’s lyricism projects a gentle sense of life’s sorrowfulness.

Xie Fei is largely underestimated director. Older than the more famous 5th Generation stars like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, and the teacher of 6th Generation directors like Jia Zhangke and Wang Xiaoshuai, he is considered by many to be the leading 4th Generation director. Jia Zhangke has publicly acknowledged his debt to Xie Fei and is otherwise linked to the 6th Generation through his concentration on social issues in his films. Born in 1942 in the centre of the Communist Soviets power Yan’an he enrolled in the new Beijing Film Academy in 1960, graduating from the Directors stream in 1965. Appointed as a teacher at the Film Academy the Cultural Revolution interrupted his career. He was a red guard before being sent to the countryside for 4 years, a period that he refers to as the reason why 4th and 5th Generation filmmakers in China make great films because of the accumulation of life experiences they gained from living a new life. Returning to Beijing he worked as an assistant director at the Beijing Film Studio before taking up his teaching post at the Film Academy where he remained until his retirement. To Xie Fei, as a teacher, he was released from the many constraints placed on studio directors who have to make commercial films or propaganda to attract funding. Through the creation of their own film studio all teachers at the academy had the opportunity to make films about once every three years. By being in this system Xie Fei says that he was able to make cultural art films, the films he wanted to make.  Films where the director and the screenwriter express their thoughts on culture and society as well as producing artistic expressions. Chinese literary and cultural circles of the1980s expressed many different ideas as they launched themselves into the post-Mao era including criticism of the Cultural Revolution and of persistent social problems and this set the scene for Xie Fei’s early films, such as Wo men de tian ye, Our Fields (1983), Xiang nu xiao xiao, A Girl From Hunan (1986), Xiang hun nu, Woman from The Lake of Scented Souls (1993). Later the government limited further criticism and so Xie Fei shot films about minorities using minority scriptwriters, actors and language; Hei jun ma, Mongolian Tale (1995) and Yixizhuoma, Song of Tibet (2000). He sees these films, together with Black Snow, to be art films that have lasting significance because of their cultural content, as opposed to commercial films whose shelf life maybe lucrative but of extremely limited duration.

Black Snow falls between these distinctive brackets of Xie Fei’s filmography. Set in an urban environment it connects with his other films through its criticism of humanity and social problems in the midst of China’s rapid social change. It is his only film not set in the periphery of China and not centred on women’s experience. Towards the end of the1980s economic reform was having a serious impact on China, visibly increasing the gap between the well-off and the poor. There also emerged a gap between the loss of ideology and the high tide of commercialism, as China entered the period of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. Black Snow looks at the lost generation in this period whose education was disrupted by the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, leaving them semi-literate and badly educated. Jiang Wen (Lui Huiquan) returns from prison to his home, is supervised by his local committee and has to conform to a new and unfamiliar set of rules. State-run factories that had provided his employment have been displaced and his only option is to join the new entrepreneurship or live as an outsider within the alternative world of nightclubs and thugs. His experience of this changed China is thronged with difficulties but, like the heroines in Xie Fei’s earlier films, he tries and he wants an honest life. He stays outside of society but resists the pull of thuggery; he is a remnant of innocence. The other main character, a female singer Zhau Yaqui, is also an outsider but is better able to adapt and progress. Her presence in the film makes the relationship between happiness and growing societal wealth more complex. The title of the film alludes to the Liu Heng’s idea that fate falls from the sky like snow, turning black or staying white, depending on where it falls and the opposing outcomes for the 2 major characters echoes this metaphor.

The film gets its emotional force from its quietness and unassuming nature. This is a study of loneliness. Shouldering much of the narrative Jiang Wen is, as ever, fascinating to observe, his every movement and gesture delicately detailing Lui Huiquan’s progress in his attempts to reintegrate and his disillusionment in the face of setbacks. Xie Fei’s shooting style, in return, reinforces Jiang’s performance. The moody colours with which he surrounds Lui Huiquan’s life and his metered use of a handheld camera gives the film a personal and sad reality. There is no score to the film, but the sentimental songs of the young singer played by Lin Cheng, with their optimistic lyrics, provide Xie Fei with breaks from this more usual realistic style, to inject something more fanciful, almost dreamlike. These segments are essential to the success of the film, encapsulating an empty promise to perfectly demonstrate the overwhelming sense of entrapment.

Silver Bear, Berlin Film Festival, 1990

Best Film, Hundred Flowers Award, China Film Association, 1990

Duration: 99 minutes