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Frozen

1997, Movie, NR, 95 mins

Frozen: Review

FROZEN | JIDU HANLENG
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Life, death and art become fatally intertwined in this provocative new film from China, and the result is chilling. Purportedly based on a true event, it opens shortly after the suicide of Qi Lei (Jia Honshen), a young Beijing performance artist who turned his own death into a work of conceptual art. The how and why are explored in flashback. Obsessed with death, Qi Lei plans a series performances, one for each season of a single year, each pushing his body further toward the boundary between life and death. In autumn he buries himself up to neck in earth; winter finds Qi Lei floating face down in water; in spring, he sits surrounded by fire. Qi Lei saves the first day of summer for his ultimate act of creative destruction: burial in ice until he's dead. The credits list "Wu Ming" -- Mandarin for "No Name" -- as director, and it's easy to see why the filmmaker prefers to remain anonymous: The film's sharp depiction of the grungy disaffection of Beijing's underground youth movement is marked by an overwhelming sense of disgust, even allowing for the twist ending that undoes much of what comes before. Produced entirely outside the official auspices of China's government studio system -- in and of itself a punishable act of defiance -- it's a raw, strange and ultimately confounding piece of filmmaking. Perhaps the fact that Qi Lei's artistic intentions remain obscure is precisely the point: It renders his final act a tragic, ultimately empty gesture that signals the desperation of China's post-Tiananmen Square generation. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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