Chinese Literature and Culture 18

Editorial: A Movie Is Not a Movie

by Chu Dongwei

2020 will be remembered in history as a very special year. For much of the first half of the Chinese lunar year, cinemas were closed in the country due to the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. Filmmakers and cinemas ready to make another big harvest with the annual Chinese New Year blockbusters found their fortune gone in a day. A few smart movie producers quickly switched to online video platforms and found an alternative success.

Back in the seventies and eighties of the last century, watching a movie was a big treat for the rural and urban communities. When the man with movie reels on his bike came, it was like a festival. The crowd gathered in an open-air meeting ground or a sports field regardless of wind and rain. Both the scene and the story on the screen stuck in the memory forever.

For a very long time, the movie theater occupied a central place in the cities. Movies and pop corn constituted the romance of young people. However, by the turn of the century, the movie theater waned. Rows and rows of seats became empty in the big cinemas. Entertainment diversified and watching movies in cinemas for many people became a thing of the past. Today, as the movie industry regained its vigor through improved acoustic and visual effects thanks to the development of technology and variety of content targeted at different demographic groups, the cinema has once again flourished in the key locations of a city except that, this time around, it came in multiple showrooms in one location equipped with comfortable sofas, and of course with heftier ticket prices. Open-air screening has become very rare and may technically be no longer possible.

The history of the movie theater is the history of the modern world as the movie is part and parcel of modern life. Whether you are a man or a woman, young or old, rich or poor, you get connected with modern life through the movie and you have your own version of the history of the movie as you experience it.

Zhu Shanpo's short story, "Visitors from Deep in the Mountains," recommended for translation by Xiao Su, another story-writer, serves as a reminiscence of a piece of Chinese life in modern history. Art, as useless as it is for practical purposes, plays a dominant role in the nourishing of the soul. In this beautifully written story, the content of the movie is never relevant, it is watching itself that matters. Interwoven with fate, resignation, pursuit of happiness, love, and human compassion, the sad, peaceful love story outside the movies touches a deeper part of our heart.

In this world of fast tempo, access to the movie theater has become increasingly easy, but can we sit quietly and enjoy it like before?

A trip to the cinema is a get-away from the real world for a brief moment. So, watch a movie if you can.

For the convenience of language learners, the story is published in bilingual format.

To go with this issue, we have two poems by Alice Tan, also in bilingual format.

Finally, I would like to apologize for the late publication of the current issue while rejoicing that CLC has survived thus far. It will move ahead as all of us will.