From Ai Weiwei, a portrait of Wuhan’s Draconian Covid Lockdown

LONDON – In January, the Chinese city of Wuhan became the first in the world to undergo a lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic. In many ways, this crucial period remains a mystery, with a few images escaping the grasp of the sensors.

A new film by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei helps fill in some of the missing history. Although Ai now lives in Europe, Ai has targeted dozens of volunteers across China to create ‘Coronation’, a portrait of Wuhan’s draconian lockdown – and of a country that can mobilize large resources, if human costs are too high.

“The public needs to understand that this is about China,” Ai said in a telephone interview from Portugal. “Yes, it’s about the corona lockdown, but it’s trying to reflect what ordinary Chinese people went through.”

The film reflects this broader story through vignettes that follow the events chronologically: It begins on Jan. 23. With a couple driving through a snowy night to return home to a suburb of Wuhan, and ending on April 8 with people burning paper money – a traditional offering to the dead – on a street corner.

As a result, scenes and stories are notable for their rare access to Chinese state machines. These include up-close-up images of a hospital built in a few days and an inside view of an intensive care unit, scenes of medical staff being rewarded with membership in the Communist Party and of workers at a cremating knapsack of human beings ash so they will fit in urns.

The overall impression, especially in the first half hour of the film, is one of tremendous efficiency. Crews quickly bolt prefabricated rooms together, ICU machines squeak and purr. The new party members are fastened with their right fists up and the cremating workers work so hard that they complain that their hands are in pain.

As the film progressed, the human cost became clearer. A volunteer whose job is ready is not allowed to leave the quarantine zone, so he sleeps in his car in a parking garage. Mourners cry irresponsibly at a crematorium, and a man fights to be allowed to collect his father’s urn without government officials present – which authorities do not allow, as they fear mourning will anger the government for it have allowed the virus to spin out of control.

Although best known as an artist for his great installations, Ai has often explored sensitive issues in China on film, including a documentary about a man who killed six policemen in Shanghai, and one about why so many schools were hit by the earthquake of Wenchuan 2008.

“I had a team that could start quickly,” Ai said of creating “Coronation.” “They did not have to ask what I wanted.”

In addition to volunteers, and paid crews, Ai said he was helped by his partner, Wang Fen, who has sisters who live in Wuhan. “She had a deep emotional involvement,” he said.

The hardest shot to shoot was inside the ICU, Ai said, but he could not say how it was filmed. He said much of it was done with handheld video cameras about the size of a smartphone that can stabilize images. It helped, he said, that many people wore masks: That made them less nervous about problems in talking to cameras.

Ai said he collected nearly 500 hours of footage that he and his team cut to make the roughly two hours of documentary.

The film is available in the United States on Alamo on Demand and in other parts of the world on Vimeo on Demand. Ai said he had hoped to show it at a film festival first, but festivals in New York, Toronto and Venice after he first expressed interest. He said Amazon and Netflix also rejected the film.

He says his impression is that this was because many of these festivals and companies want to do business in China and thus avoid topics that might anger Beijing, which other Chinese directors say is commonplace.

The Venice International Film Festival declined to comment, while the Toronto Independent Film Festival and Amazon did not return calls or emails. Others denied that politics played a role. A Netflix spokeswoman said she was working on her own documentary about the virus, while a press officer for the New York Film Festival said in an email that “we do not want to stress that political pressure and have never played a role in it.” t festival curatorial selection. ”

Ai said the film highlights how China’s technocratic successes present a formidable challenge to open societies. The market of state capitalism has provided dozens of rapid economic growth, and has helped to raise tens of millions from absolute poverty.

“But it’s not just how efficiently you make decisions, but what you deliver to human society,” Ai said. “China has no answers there.”

Rather than providing the world with a model for how to govern, China’s response to the virus shows an increasingly nervous, fragile country, he said. In the scenes where mourning as if gathering, Ai said, for example, viewers should note that all people in white suits and full personal protective equipment are lurking in the background, are members of state organizations trying to make sure a lid is on the sorrow is kept.

“China has this very clear opinion that once you lose control then chaos ensues,” Ai said. “It has no roots in stabilizing itself, because it has no national government organizations, only the government.”

Coronation can be seen in the United States on Alamo on Demand, or anywhere else in the world on Vimeo on Demand.

Follow Ian Johnson on Twitter: @iandenisjohnson