Red Art

Hu and Ai now take appropriate aim at foreign enablers.  In period British footage of Chinese workers dancing with Aly Rose-like choreography and singing—to their own instrumental accompaniment—“Today is the day to fight the Japanese,” Hu and Ai cut to stills of the struggle sessions. As the workers sing, “Target the enemy,” Hu and Ai show the “enemy” that was actually targeted by Mao in the C.R., not the Japanese, but the Chinese people. “Go and annihilate them,” the workers sing as a still shows a Chinese man, ink splashed on his face, placard hanging from his neck, being paraded in front of a stadium of people.  Then to the strains of, “Chop off the heads of the imperialist devils,” Hu and Ai superimpose a still of the execution by firing squad of eight Chinese. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” the workers sing over a still of the executed bodies. Oh this is devastating stuff.

The British voice-over to the workers performance is, “A lunch-hour* entertainment at the Canton Sewing Machine Factory, a sort of Chinese workers’ playtime.”

“Sort of” not.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”  This was very hard to watch when I first viewed the film some months ago. Some time later, a group of adorable little Chinese school children act out a performance denouncing Liu Shaoqi. I remember one little Chinese girl, in her high lilting voice, looking down at the ground as if at a prostrate Liu, stamping her foot, gesturing down with her right arm, angrily denouncing “the bastard Liu.”  Horrible.

For the next fifty seconds, from 13:47-14:36, Zhou Jineng shows Hu and Ai newspaper accounts from the time of the death and destruction, bodies covered with sheets, full-face photos of corpses, buildings damaged by cannon fire. This was due to factional fighting between competing Red Guard groups. Zhou sent me these photos some years ago and they were published here.

Hu and Ai take a break. As a mournful violin plays in the background, very similar in feeling to Ashokan Fairwell in Ken Burns’ “Civil War” film, a China Airways 747 ascends through the air. It will land in London.

*The film’s English subtitle has this as “A Luncha.” I don’t know Chinese but I do know English and the British commentator clearly says “lunch hour” which is also clear from context.

Photo: Hu Jie.