Of Shadows

On the Loess Plateau, in northern China, a travelling shadow theatre troupe rides around in a three-wheel minivan, delighting audiences old and young and giving life to the last glimmers of an ancient oral and musical tradition. A gentle familiarity blossoms in the conversations with the filmmaker. “People run to see a play, but you, your play runs to see people!” she points out to these performers, who sometimes find themselves up against fierce competition (an open-air cinema just next to their tent) or power cuts. The alternation of day and night sequences quickly orients the film towards an aesthetic that echoes its subject: the rhythm of the images, the touches of light, parallel story lines… But Yi Cui, like the puppeteers, never takes up an “artistic” pose. Instead, she underlines the flagrant contrast between this modest, easy-going and less lucrative lifestyle, and the twenty-screen shows organised by the authorities to promote the region’s valued tradition of shadow-theatre, but mainly to tame it for propaganda purposes. The gigantic “sound and light” spectacles with slogans sung in the background – and where the travelling performers pick up a few cents – speak of a China where “the major highways make it easy to move around”. A burst of laughter from the puppeteers, who trundle off again on a muddy dirt road… (Charlotte Garson)