On February 15th a virtually unknown film-maker from China, Diao Yinan, beat long-established directors to claim the top prize at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, one of Europe’s most respected. Of the eight prizes awarded in the main competition, three went to Chinese films. Mr Diao’s Black Coal, Thin Ice, a noir thriller, won best film and actor while Lou Ye’s Blind Massage received the prize for best camerawork. When the news broke the Chinese film industry was ecstatic. In a tweet Zhou Tiedong, the president of China Film Promotion International, a government body, pronounced the coming years to be "the China decade”.
In terms of box-office performance that is not far-fetched. China is now the world’s second largest market, with box-office takings in 2013 growing 28% year-on-year to $3.6 billion. Some predict that, by 2020, China will have taken over America’s market.
But the appeal of Chinese films abroad has been limited. Last year overseas admissions to Chinese-made films declined for the second successive year. Of some 640 films produced, 45 were licensed for exhibition abroad, earning a combined profit of just $173m. The government wants global recognition of its artistic achievements befitting an emerging superpower. After the Berlin success, Xinhua, a state-run news agency, gushed that Chinese films have “finally burst forth magnificently”. Black Coal, Thin Ice brings soft power victory.
Mr Diao is hopeful his film can do the improbable: thrill viewers, pass censors and stay true to his artistic vision. Set in the bleak northeastern province of Heilongjiang, opening scenes depict dismembered body parts tumbling along a coal chute. While it is not overtly political, the film does offer a dark portrait of China. Shots of gambling dens and sprawling factories with expendable people, Mr Diao says, depict the absurdity of modern life. A review by The Hollywood Reporter, a trade newspaper, calls it a salute to classic film noir, describing one scene as Hitchcockian and spiked with eros and tension.
Yet for film-makers, critical success overseas does not translate into a hero’s welcome at home. Even films that win the top prizes in Europe are consigned to heavy censorship, outright bans or, worse, obscurity. Tuya’s Marriage, the last Chinese film to win Berlin’s top prize in 2007, made a paltry $200,000 at the Chinese box-office. Perhaps it is because arthouse directors are typically concerned with the grim social reality from which audiences prefer to escape. Mr Diao says that profit-oriented theatre managers will choose the sure-fire hit. He spent eight years infusing a once-lofty Black Coal, Thin Ice script with more commercial elements.
Censorship is another creative inhibitor. The Chinese government oversees the film-making process and presses to alter narratives that do not subscribe to a state-sanctioned value system while promoting, through financing and favourable release slots, those that do. When Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1993, it was initially banned in China. A film by director Jia Zhangke, A Touch of Sin, received the prize for best screenplay at Cannes last year. Acutely violent, the film remains in limbo, its scheduled release date long past.
Miraculously the exploration of racy themes in Black Coal, Thin Ice drew no conflict at the censorship bureau. “I have seen the approval certificate myself,” says Mr Diao, predicting the film will be out in months. In the past, films deemed controversial have arrived at this stage and faltered (Mr Jia had predicted a smooth release too). Perhaps the next decade will belong to Chinese film after all. The release of Black Coal, Thin Ice would be a step forward.