What I like when I go to a cinema is to pay West End prices and have
the projectionist take three attempts to show the correct subtitles on a film. Well
done the Price Charles Cinema! It's not the first time I've had failings of the
digital age - DJs have had their over-reliance on their MacBooks exposed when
they crash, lost with little to do except try and re-boot as soon as possible.
While it just takes a moment's patience from the audience, it doesn't put you
in the best of moods to start a film.
I, therefore, got three attempts to view the start of the opening
short, 'Extras' as part of the five short stories that make up 'Ten Years'.
'Happy Together' by Wong Kar-wai is one of my favourite films, an allegory
of two gay men from Hong Kong travelling across Argentina, seemingly exiled from
home. A film made just before the UK's hand-over of Hong Kong in 1997, the
anxieties of what will become of Hong Kong over the next fifty years have been
something looked at in the arts, as well as played out in the real-life streets
of the SAR.
'Ten Years' is five shorts set in and around the year 2025, ten years
after the film was made: in 2015, Maths fans. Each take a more-than-slightly
controversial look at various aspects of life and how they could be changed in
the future, as China's influence grows. I'm sure China took kindly to it.
'Extras', the opening tale, is regarding two Triads, chosen to be pawns
in a political chess game with public opinion. The National Security chiefs
feel that their role will be undermined, with little fear among the populace.
Therefore, the two hapless Triads are offered big money to shoot at two
politicians, creating public fear, highlighting the need for Security Forces. An
inside act of terror, this is one for conspiracy theorists all over. The short
itself, however, is fairly simplistic and feels a little amateurish in
execution. It's probably best that this one flies by at the start.
The second is by far the strangest
of the quintet, and left me feeling even the actors don't really know what is
going on. A couple of 'specimen collectors' go about their 'research' in an
abandoned building, but little is really clear as to what exactly they are
doing, or why. With parts that remind of György
Pálfi's 'Taxidermia' and others 'The Shining', this is a random collection of 'specimens'
of scenes, thrown together with little coherent story to speak of.
The first two a
bit weak, thankfully the third picks up the pace greatly. A taxi driver
struggles with the new policy that all drivers must speak Putonghua instead of
Cantonese to be able to pick up certain fares. This leads to comedy
moments as he tries to learn pronunciations of words, such as 'David Beckham.'
But for the driver that previously had to learn English to get work now
struggles with another language being forced upon him, potentially taking his
livelihood as a result.
The fourth is probably the most controversial, a mockumentary about
someone self-immolating themselves outside the British Consulate. Speaking with
various academics and writers on the subject of protest movements, it tells the
story of a young student whose imprisonment inspired others, as they try to
identify the silent protester. It speaks of many subjects, relevant in light of
recent movements in Hong Kong, and how these could tragically develop as the
years pass.
The fifth and final story is of a vendor whose son, along with all
other children, has to take part in activities on behalf of the government,
keeping surveillance on all shops and points of sale. The smallest of things
will be noted, with common sense forgotten as the young children blindly follow
orders. Picked up for advertising 'local eggs', when the approved 'Hong Kong
eggs' should be used, he questions his son as to what it is he is doing in his
role, concerned that his son is becoming a brainwashed trooper for the secret
police. But soon he learns that his son has been assisting some of the shops he
is sent to keep an eye on, showing that independent thought and protest are
still alive and well in the future's youth.
These five Orwellian visions of what may become of Hong Kong are varied
in quality, but all raise interesting anxieties present among a people as to
what the future may hold. Well, maybe not 'Season of the End'. As a UK
resident, while different in their circumstances, the situation in Hong Kong reflects
the uncertainty that surrounds the UK's political future and what impacts, with
various doomsday scenarios playing out in the minds of all concerned, if you're
bothered, that is.
It could prove that there is little change afoot, but the human mind
cannot cope with uncertainty, and Hong Kong has another thirty years of anxiety
ahead of it before anyone's ideas can be founded.
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