|
 In China, all broadcast media and films are pre-screened for
approval and anything deemed politically sensitive is banned.
After Wolf Totem, written by Lu Jiamin under the pseudonym Jiang
Rong, was published, some foreign critics pointed out elements
that seemed to have escaped the country's censors.
An environmental cautionary tale that pits a pack of wolves
against an influx of settlers to the grasslands during the late
1960's Cultural Revolution, the 2004 bestselling novel also
includes critiques of Chinese culture and governance, and
favorable allusions to democracy.
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud said while he understood he "may
have been an exception", Chinese censors made no modifications
to his screenplay.
"What I can say is that I had carte blanche at every level until
this day. The movie you see is the same movie I cut," Annaud
told Reuters in an interview in Beijing ahead of the film's
release in China later this month.
The book won the first Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007. The
author, Lu, a retired professor, has since affirmed he had been
jailed for his involvement in the 1989 democracy protests around
Tiananmen Square.
Chinese officials hope to expand the global imprint of the
country's culture and arts and government pronouncements and
state media often discuss plans for "cultural reform" to this
end.
"Definitely, in order to achieve soft power, there will be a
need to allow artistic freedom," Annaud said of the development
of China's film industry under state censors, adding that he was
"not here to give a lesson to anyone".
LANDS, RIGHTS AND TRADITIONS
Much like the book, Annaud's approximately $40 million movie,
backed by the state-run China Film Group, deals with
conservation themes head on, though it largely avoids the book's
more subtle political issues.
[to top of second column] |
Annaud said that conservation had been one of his "constant
preoccupations" as a director.
"If we want to save our little planet, we cannot do it without
America and without China," Annaud said.
Annaud had crossed the Chinese government with his 1997 film, Seven
Years in Tibet. That movie depicts a young Dalai Lama, who China
says is a separatist seeking autonomy for the Himalayan region.
Wolf Totem is set to hit theaters at a time when many ethnic
Mongolians say their grazing lands have been ruined by mining and
decertification and that the government has tried to resettle them
in permanent houses.
Minority ethnic Mongolians, who make up 20 percent of Inner
Mongolia's 24 million people, are demanding better protection of
their lands, rights and traditions.
The region, which has the country's largest coal reserves, was
rocked by protests in 2011 after an ethnic Mongol herder was killed
by a truck after taking part in protests against pollution.
In January, another herder hanged himself outside a government
building in protest at the authorities' illegal occupation of his
grazing land.
(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
