RIDM 2015: The Chinese Mayor

THE CHINESE MAYOR

by HAO ZHOU

THE STATE OF THE WORLD

2015 / Colour / China / 86 min. / Mandarin with English subtitles 

This film is about a remarkable man with a big vision. Since I am a Montrealer, I immediately thought of the Montreal's famous former mayor Jean Drapeau who had grand projects for Montreal and thought in big pictures. He built Montreal's metro, the cultural centre Place-des-Arts, the Olympic Stadium, all this and more with a single vision of making Montreal into a big and well functioning metropolis, the way it is today. Fortunately, our former mayor had a lot of time to carry his grand projects to completion, which was not the case with Geng Yanbo, the Chinese mayor of Datong city. Montreal's mayor Drapeau also had to relocate many people to free the space for his projects, which created similar controversies that Chinese mayor Geng Yanbo had to deal with. 

The film The Chinese Mayor shows how even in a very restrictive political setting a single man can take charge of city's affairs. And then with a powerful determination and a great love for the ancient Chinese culture, art, and history, start rebuilding ancient monuments to revive in Chinese people their cultural memory, their pride and love of their history. The mission he himself chose to put on his shoulders was monumental. He had to push the officials and sway them away from their inertia, profiteering, dishonesty, laziness and incompetence. He had to keep them in line so the projects would be accomplished and done. He even told a city contractor on camera that he looked like an honest person but he was not. Geng Yanbo's job was titanic. Time and again the film showed how at every step of the project he met and had to deal with delays, inertness, incompetence, and even swindling and corruption. Yet as much as physically possible, he tried to keep the tabs on all the aspects and on all the stages of his city's project.

The film shows the mayor's approachability by the city dwellers who were falling through the system's cracks. They always had his ear regarding their problem's. With one stroke of his pen on a document shown to him, he would resolve the people's problems. This demonstrated his very human and non bureaucratic respect for ordinary people and their difficulties.

It is sad that his efforts were not better appreciated by the country's leadership and that he was not able to complete his very ambitious project. Yet he had learned a lot at Datong. As the film seems to indicate, at his subsequent posting, Geng Yanbo's very first step was to relocate people successfully before embarking on any construction, rather than doing both at the same time as was the case in Datong city. 

The film has also touching and comical elements in addition to the seriousness of the main topic. The camera seems to pick up with ease various small vignettes that complete the overall grand picture of the film.

The film not only brings to the viewer the Chinese realities but also demonstrates to what an extent we are all the same, just human beings, regardless of our cultural differences and where we live on our planet Earth. I highly recommend to see this film.

Film's Official Synopsis

"Geng Yanbo, the mayor of the Chinese city of Datong, is a very, very busy man. Obsessed with the idea of restoring the old imperial city to its former glory, he has decided to demolish one third of the town so as to rebuild its legendary walls. Nothing can stop this hyper-energetic, permanently active man, who is blessed with powers of persuasion capable of swaying significant numbers of sceptics. Is he a visionary, or a progress-at-all costs type on a collision course with a wall? Thanks to almost unlimited access, the film leaves the question open but gives us an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at how socio-economic issues are playing out in today’s China."

COUNTRY : CHINA
YEAR : 2015
LANGUAGE : MANDARIN
SUBTITLES : ENGLISH
RUNTIME : 86 MIN
PRODUCTION : QI ZHAO
CINEMATOGRAPHY : TIANHUI ZHANG
EDITING : TOM HSINGMING LIN, XIAOCHUAN YU
SOUND : JING XIAO

CONTACT (PRODUCTION)
QI ZHAO
ZHAOQI FILMS
ZHAOQIFILMS@GMAIL.COM

 

HAO ZHOU

FILMOGRAPHY
HOU JIE TOWNSHIP (2001)
SENIOR YEAR (2005)
USING (2008)
THE TRANSITION PERIOD (2010)
COTTON (2014)

Watch the FILM'S TRAILER on vimeo.

For more information about the documentary film festival visit the RIDM website.