This is the trailer for the newly released documentary about Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei 艾未未: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, which I just watched. Ai helped design the iconic Bird’s Nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics and then famously boycotted the Games on the grounds that China was using the Olympics for propaganda, among other offences, such as forcefully removing migrant workers from Beijing and preventing local citizens from attending.
The movie showcases Ai’s politically charged artwork, and covers his activism, for example, launching his own investigation into how many children died in the massive 2008 Sichuan earthquake due to shoddily built schools, because the government has refused to release the death toll.
The film is hard-hitting about the current political reality in China. Despite economic progress, important human rights - freedom of speech and assembly - have scantly improved. The dangers that face outspoken critics of the Chinese government are very real. Though Ai is very outspoken and critical of the government, many considered him untouchable because of his international fame.
Perhaps to show that no one is untouchable, the government eventually cracked down on Ai, shutting down his blog, demolishing his new art studio, and finally making Ai himself “disappear” last year. Ai was finally released after 81 days, and hit with a bogus tax evasion charge and fined more than US$2M. Ai is not allowed to talk about what happened, and lives under constant surveillance. But Ai’s fate is still better than other dissidents, such as Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波, another famous Chinese human rights activist who is currently serving a 11 year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power”. Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his decades of work promoting human rights progress in non-violent ways, but was even denied the right to have a representative pick up the award while he is incarcerated.
The parts of the film covering Ai’s family history were particularly difficult for me to watch. Ai’s father, renowned poet Ai Qing, was denounced as 右派 (Right Wing) and brutally persecuted leading up to the Cultural Revolution. This was a frenzied period lasting years in which books and cultural relics were destroyed (my mom told me they sold off books by the pound during this time), and intellectuals and merchants were witch-hunted, had their property seized, publicly humiliated, and sent to far off rural areas for “re-education” (hard manual labor). My grandfather, a philosophy professor, suffered the same indignity, and spent 20 years away, during which my family lived under a black mark. Like Ai’s father, my grandfather was fortunately “reinstated” eventually, but nonetheless it was at his urging that my parents made the decision to leave China permanently after 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests.
When I visited China in 2007, I think Tiananmen Square had more plainclothed police than actual tourists, due to heightened security leading up to the Olympics. Every visit to China, and particularly in 2009 when I spoke to local Tibetans after the unrest the year before, makes me reflect on the liberties that we take for granted here in North America.
The movie captures the scenes of Ai in New York, where he lived for many years before returning to China in 1993, with nostalgia and a certain reverence for the US. Ai was profoundly influenced by America, and while there photographed and participated in protests, revelling in the freedom.
Technology has enabled unprecedented ability for ordinary citizens to organize, as evidenced by the campaign against SOPA, and countless protests and even revolutions worldwide, which were aided by the rise of social networks. While Facebook has been pushing to enter the lucrative Chinese market, the Great Firewall of China proves a formidable foe, and China has thus far kept Facebook and Twitter out, and even Google eventually abandoned its efforts despite a period of capitulation to China’s censorship laws.
Ai Weiwei uses technology heavily, particularly Twitter (through a VPN, even now after his disappearance) to spread awareness and organize protests - a protest can simply be eating together. You can follow him at @aiww, he tweets in Chinese.
I highly recommend this multi-faceted documentary, which lifts the cover on the polished appearance China puts on, from the perspective of a remarkable man, who could have made tons of money as an artist and kept quiet, but instead risks his life and liberty to fight injustice. China won’t be changed in a day, but as Ai says in the film,
"I fight so my children don’t have to fight same fight".
Finally, the film is entertaining. For a serious documentary, it has its share of laughs, showing off the humorous and irreverent Ai very well. I particularly like the scene of him bringing 冰棍儿 (popsicles - Mungbean flavor, my favorite too!) for his young son, and all the shots of his reportedly 40 cats. So whatever your inclination: human rights, modern art, China, Twitter, or cats, there’s something for you.
If you’re in San Francisco, you’re in luck, Kabuki theater is one of a handful screening this documentary right now. Go see it!
Update: @AWWNeverSorry informed me the movie is also open in Canada in select theaters. In Toronto you can see it at TIFF Bell Lightbox.