Blind Shaft (2003)

People in academia noted that the creating non-fiction writing classes are increasing, faculties expanding, publishers finding new markets and interests.Same in movies. After seeing this motion picture, looked up the director. He spent two years as a documentary's for a German TV station. Now I understand why Blind Shaft has this documentary feel.For example, there is no background music. No Hollywood pyrotechnics, no Italian melodramatic musical background. The opening three minutes that leads to the movie title makes clear what kind of movie this is: slowly, we see a mine camp, operation, machinery, miners with helmets slowly getting out of the shacks, and entering the elevator shaft. As the elevator descends deep in the mine, the camera is directed upward, and the shaft opening with its sky becomes smaller and smaller as the elevator descends. At the same time, the portion of the screen that is black becomes bigger and bigger. There is no background music, just the noise of the mine elevator descending. Then, two Chinese calligraphy characters appear in red. It's the title: "Blind Shaft".Many scenes of outdoor markets. Many scenes of society. Many scenes of migrant workers traveling, looking, finding work. Many scenes of workers sending remittances back to their villages, now populated only by women, grandmothers looking after children. "All the men left the village looking for work", it is quoted.A boy stands in the market holding a sign: "Admitted to high school. Need money to attend". People leave money in his can.Negotiations between people are constantly made, about money, about things, wants and desires. Money is traded. Lot of human interaction.After seeing all the Chinese movies about beautiful mountains, pastures, glorified past, and other fantasies, see this realistic movie with its documentary's flavor.

I knew literally nothing about this film going into it, and I found its opening sequence – with the gritty cinematography, the squalid, almost alien setting, the inky darkness of the mine, and the sudden shock of violence – to be quite engaging and sinister, even frightening. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the film was to be none of those things. "Mang jing" might have made a great satiric or absurdist horror film – its concept is fascinating and macabre – but Yang Li's treatment of the idea is surprisingly bland. Oh, it limps forward with subtlety and reasonably good taste, but in the end it's barely memorable for any specific element. Even its politics, which the promotional text (oddly) suggests is to be such a huge factor in the overall mix, turns out to be rather tame and unremarkable. Disappointing, really. 5.5 out of 10.

I just saw this at the Pan African Film Festival where it was curated in conjunction with Visual Communications in a cross-cultural viewing. Bravo for that foresight.And bravo for selecting BLIND SHAFT. Is it a masterpiece? No. What it is is a very solid piece of film-making. In basketball terms, it isn't Magic Johnson, it's James Worthy.Rather than go into the plot, which everyone seems wont to do on these boards, I think it's much more helpful to talk about films in terms of their elements. Plot you can get anywhere, such as Ebert.The story is a simple morality tale. Nuff said. What's standout about this movie is the ACTING - some of the best, particularly by the youngster that plays the young boy. He is super. The two principles and extended cast are solid as well.Which points toward director Li Yang who flexes assured muscles throughout. Nothing fancy - no super montages or MTV fancy shmancy technique. In fact, the lighting is uniformly flat throughout, with a decidedly blue cast to connote the frigid brisk air. That's it.It's also marked by the absence of a soundtrack.BLIND SHAFT is a return to film-making of a Bressonian order, but with actors, not "models" as Bresson called them. It is a simple tale, but told in such a straight-ahead honest manner, it stands in stark contrast to the contrived machinations of the Hollywood puke machine that spews out "packages" like clockwork.See this movie if you want bare-knuckle, honest film-making. Skip it if you want Brett Ratner window dressing from Hollywood - it's not for you then.

BLIND SHAFT (Mang Jing) Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: Dolby DigitalYang Li's indictment of rural poverty and safety issues in the Chinese mining industry features Qiang Li and Wang Shuangbo as a couple of itinerant laborers who make a 'living' by befriending poor, unemployed travelers and taking work together in unsafe coal mines where they murder their newfound 'friends' and make it look like an accident, forcing unscrupulous mine owners to ensure their silence with a series of generous pay-offs. Their downfall is precipitated by the arrival of young, innocent Wang Baoqiang, with whom the two men form a paternal alliance and whose impending death fills Qiang with dreadful foreboding.Either you like this kind of defiantly 'arthouse' stuff or you don't, and this one gets off to an unpromising start by asking us to empathize with a couple of heartless monsters who not only murder a man in cold blood, but use his death to line their own pockets before flushing his ashes down the toilet! But the movie picks up with the arrival of virginal Wang, a genuinely charming kid whose naivety and innocence stirs feelings of compassion within the two protagonists, leading to an ironic twist in the tale. Professionally assembled and shot on location in the heart of China's rural landscape, this is much more naturalistic than the clinically beautiful films we're used to seeing from Chinese filmmakers. Not for all tastes, but rewarding for those willing to stay the distance.(Mandarin dialogue)