Poet of film
By Niu Chen
Tang Di is anything but mainstream.
The director seizes on sound and uses flowing images of his protagonists that defy any clean-cut storytelling. His free literary style is why the writer-turned-filmmaker is considered a pioneer of “poetic filmmaking.”
Last Saturday, Wenjin International Art Center screened several of his shorts. The sharp questions about his plots and themes that followed were reminiscent of Lake Road, Tanks’ directorial debut that went on to win the prize for experimental film at The Second 54 International Youth Arts Festival.
Tang Di was raised by his mother in a small village near Tangshan, Hebei Province. “Though she was illiterate, my mother always wanted me to be a writer or a doctor. It was hard to imagine, since I seldom read or kept a journal,” he said.
But Tang made a life-changing decision during his second year of high school: he dropped out.
“The atmosphere at school was depressing and I felt stressed,” he said. “I was a loner with few friends, and that great pressure made me feel like I would do something really desperate.”
During the months that followed, Tang made up his mind to become a writer. “When I first suggested it to my mother, she said I didn’t have the talent. I had to study hard on my own,” he said.
During the following five years, Tang read often and occasionally sent out his manuscripts. In 2006, Youth Literature published one of his short stories, marking the beginning of Tang’s literary career.
“I wrote movie reviews for two to three long years before making a film, and that helped shaped my aesthetics and gave me some ideas,” he said.
Lake Road, his first attempt at a short film, was shot together with Arrival and Modified Tone – what Tang calls the “Hometown Trilogy.” That first effort distinguished him from other filmmakers for his poetic approach to film.
The shorts included only two characters, a man and a woman, who walk, bicycle and stand by the lake. Without dialogue, the interplay between the two seems really obscure, and one can hardly tell if there is a story.
But searching for a story is missing the point.
Tang said film is about having a dialogue with the viewers and drawing them into his lyricism. Plots, he argues, are unnecessary.
Each short presents only part of the story, denying viewers access to the big picture and forcing them to extrapolate and interpret. Viewers must sort out the nature of relationships using visual cues. While they may come to a different conclusion than Tang planned, it’s the process that matters, he says.
“I want my films to be open. I want my viewers to be active. A film with a clear conclusion is a failure,” Tang said.
Though it may not be obvious, Tang’s perception of society lies underneath every scene. His Life is a Journey in Labyrinth records the preparation of an art project by Huang Ruiyao. He was asked to shoot the film, but later veered away from the project to follow the migrant workers at the site. “As the program progressed, I felt less attached to the project and more connected to those workers,” he said.
His short films do not offer grand themes but express his feelings and emotions. Some, such as Lake Road and Horsehair Workers, wallow in nostalgia and lament the disappearance of fine craftsmanship.
Horsehair Workers records scenes of three horsehair workers who work in a dark room and speak in a regional dialect. Both lighting and speech take a back seat to the sound of horsehair being processed. Tang said he grew up with the unpleasant sound, and in the film pushes it to the extreme so no viewer can forget it.
But most viewers prefer hard-hitting and fast-paced documentaries to his obtuse monologues.
“While I respect those who have courage to confront the seamy side of society, my preference for a soft-landing does not mean I lack a viewpoint,” Tang said.
His works has been published in several domestic literary magazines. He is planning to release a new 90-minute film later this year.
By Niu Chen
Tang Di is anything but mainstream.
The director seizes on sound and uses flowing images of his protagonists that defy any clean-cut storytelling. His free literary style is why the writer-turned-filmmaker is considered a pioneer of “poetic filmmaking.”
Last Saturday, Wenjin International Art Center screened several of his shorts. The sharp questions about his plots and themes that followed were reminiscent of Lake Road, Tanks’ directorial debut that went on to win the prize for experimental film at The Second 54 International Youth Arts Festival.
Workers in the Tang's short film Horsehair Workers
Tang Di was raised by his mother in a small village near Tangshan, Hebei Province. “Though she was illiterate, my mother always wanted me to be a writer or a doctor. It was hard to imagine, since I seldom read or kept a journal,” he said.
But Tang made a life-changing decision during his second year of high school: he dropped out.
“The atmosphere at school was depressing and I felt stressed,” he said. “I was a loner with few friends, and that great pressure made me feel like I would do something really desperate.”
During the months that followed, Tang made up his mind to become a writer. “When I first suggested it to my mother, she said I didn’t have the talent. I had to study hard on my own,” he said.
During the following five years, Tang read often and occasionally sent out his manuscripts. In 2006, Youth Literature published one of his short stories, marking the beginning of Tang’s literary career.
“I wrote movie reviews for two to three long years before making a film, and that helped shaped my aesthetics and gave me some ideas,” he said.
Lake Road, his first attempt at a short film, was shot together with Arrival and Modified Tone – what Tang calls the “Hometown Trilogy.” That first effort distinguished him from other filmmakers for his poetic approach to film.
The shorts included only two characters, a man and a woman, who walk, bicycle and stand by the lake. Without dialogue, the interplay between the two seems really obscure, and one can hardly tell if there is a story.
But searching for a story is missing the point.
Comments
Tell us what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!