Educational Media Reviews Online

By adopting the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab’s experiential techniques of documentary filmmaking, revving them up, and mixing in staged scenes and musical dance numbers, Yumen creates a compelling experimental narrative that sometimes elicits head-scratching curiosity in the viewer. That is to say, it helps to have forewarning that one should not expect high informational content from this fiction-documentary hybrid; still, one can revel in the sumptuous visuals and enjoy the gentle and brooding ride.

Ernst Karel’s audio collage is, as always, on-point. Skirting the Harvard group’s convention of using strictly ambient sound (albeit manipulated and remixed) as a soundtrack, musical selections range from American soft rock to techno, with the film punctuated by a delightfully kitsch Chinese pop song. The narrative itself defies any definitive explanation, much of it shaped by a scripted voiceover which initially sounds like authentic oral history or a folklorist’s field recordings of ghost stories.

Filming took place in the abandoned oil-boom town of Yumen, evoking the popular online galleries that bear witness to industrial and urban decay. This striking setting serves up a dreamlike environment reminiscent of the classical ruins in a Maya Deren or Jean Cocteau work, while the story’s ominous undertones and 60’s color palate bring to mind a non-sexploitation work by vampire auteur Jean Rollin. (The film contains one extremely brief scene of male nudity.)

This astonishing work will prove essential for academic libraries supporting film studies or visual anthropology programs, and Asian studies faculty may find it of interest. Public libraries that serve experimentally-inclined patrons should also consider acquiring the film for their collection.

Awards

• Asian Vision Grand Prize and Chinese Documentary Grand Prize, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival
• Best Experimental Film, Beijing Independent Film Festival