QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM SAN SEBASTIAN

Brother Ahei (Baosier) is desperately seeking his missing sister, the beautiful Ashima (Likun Yang). She asks a group of young women where she might be, and they cryptically respond: “99 men come looking for her during the day, and a further 99 at night”, before concluding deceptively, “she is everywhere”. In reality, Ashima is being held by the family of her ruthless husband-to-be Rebu Bala (Chaoming Cui), a man with whom she has no desire to marry. Luckily for Ashima, her sibling is determined to rescue her from captivity. Even if that takes a three-day “singing fight”. The film is adapted from the narrative poem of the same name.

Brother Ahei’s journey is mostly on foot, with a loyal bow and arrow to hand. The arrow has magical powers, pointing – and even opening up – the way every time Brother Ahei gets lost. Much of the story takes place on the mountains and the woods, with the actors wearing elaborate period costumes. The developments are narrated in lyrical singing format, bordering on the operatic. Impromptu dance acts take up roughly half of the movie’s runtime of 90 minutes.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Ashima is that it is sung neither in Mandarin nor Cantonese – the two main languages of highly centralised China. Instead, the entire movie is in in Sani Yi, an endangered dialect of an ethnic minority of China’s Shilin County (n the country’s south, not far from Vietnam). In total, China has 56 recognised ethnic minorities (and countless unrecognised ones). This makes Ashima an intangible cultural heritage item. The fact that the Sani identity is a prominent topic in the film is also very significant. This is arguably a movie used for “ethnic classification purposes”. In other words: a highly exoticised depiction of a minority. Such products are a useful propaganda tool because they serve to emphasise the sense of “otherness”

At times, Ashima possesses the visual exuberance of Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947) – with vibrant reds and greens, and the gingerly hand-painted, stunning rocky landscape -, the musical determination of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (made in the very same year of 1964) – every single sentence of every dialogue is sung -, and the narrative sophistication of the Teletubbies. The story is so infantile, and the plot devices so primitive, that the film will elicit few emotions from 21st century audiences. Instead, its magnificence lies in the contemplation of the settings, and the appreciation of the warbling. The poetic lyrics are fairly hackneyed (“the bees will not land on prickly thistle but instead on the flower” is the most remarkable line I can remember). Naturally, cinema in the People’s Republic was still in its infancy, and the audience sensibilities were still being tested. Plus, China was (and still is) a country of strict censorship. Anything deemed morally or politically subversive is a no-go. Puerile Ashima was a convenient and easily digestible cultural item.

Despite its irrefutable visual accomplishments, this is not a technically flawless movie. A strange soft focus on the face of Brother Ahei repeatedly stains the imagery. And the amount of grain changes abruptly for no apparent reason. As a result, some images are strangely milky and dusty – and that’s not what snow looks like!

The 4k restoration of Ashima was conducted by the Shanghai Film Technology Plant Co. in partnership with L’Immagine Ritrovata Ashima. Its world premiere took place in the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival. A movie guaranteed to please fans of Chinese cinema and history, however less likely to impress larger audiences