Controversial Chinese director cancels trip to Berlin

The often controversial and sometimes censored Chinese director Zhang Yimou (張藝謀) has cancelled his visit to the Berlin film festival but his film Happy Times (幸福時光) was still shown Thursday.

The film, which is being screened out of competition for the Golden Bear main prize, makes no direct political comment, although it is about people far down on the ladder of privilege and wealth in China and the dire fate their poverty has in store for them.

Zhang, 50, has previously pulled out of festivals after problems with the Chinese authorities. His film Keep Cool (有話好好說) was kept out of Cannes in 1997 and several of his films have been banned at home.

Zhang was unable to attend the Berlin festival, the Berlinale, as he is in post-production for his next film, Hero (英雄), organizers in Berlin said Thursday.

This year's Berlinale is also screening 13 videos and films from a new generation in China who are using digital equipment to create works that address major social issues such as homelessness, drug addiction, unemployment and the consequences of the "science-fiction-like urbanization of this vast empire," the Berlinale organizers said in an article on their web site.

The motto of the program is "electric shadows," the literal translation of the Chinese word for film, the organizers said.

They described the term as perfectly characterizing "the passionate, committed and surprising emergence of a new generation of young independent filmmakers in the shadow of the official Chinese system." The way for such independence has been cleared by pioneers like Zhang.

And he is still innovating. Zhang, known for tragedies like Raise the Red Lantern (大紅燈龍高高掛), Ju Dou (菊豆) and To Live (活著), is experimenting with black humor in Happy Times.

It tells the touching, often humorous story, of a laid-off, 50-year-old factory worker Old Zhao, played by Zhao Benshan who, in trying to find a wife, ends up forming a deep, sincere parental-like relationiship with his fiancee's blind step-daughter, Wu Ying, a fragile, beautiful 18-year old played by Dong Jie (董潔).

Zhao and Dong have also cancelled their appearances at the Berlinale. Zhang said in notes for Happy Times distributed here that he was trying in the film "to pack tragic content with the shell of a comedy and have the audience experience pain following laughter. From an artistic standpoint, it's the highest level of drama."

Old Zhao is trying to marry a fat woman, a divorcee (Dong Lifan) who is only interested in money. Since he is poor, he has to pretend he owns a hotel, but it is merely a trailer in a park where he lets young lovers have some time alone.

The woman tells him to take her blind step-daughter away to work in the hotel as a masseuse but when he arrives with the girl at the park, the trailer is being towed away by police.

So Old Zhao and his friends set up a phony massage parlor in an empty warehouse and take turns getting massages and tipping Wu Ying generously.

The young girl is aware of their trick, but says nothing as she loves them for trying to help her.

Sadly, as their money runs out, the dire fate that poverty brings begins to close in.