Blind Mountain

Plot

Blind Mountain follows a young woman, Bai Xuemei, in the early 1990s who recently graduated from college and attempts to find work to help pay for her brothers education. In the process, she is drugged, kidnapped and sold as a bride to a villager in the Qin Mountains of Chinas Shaanxi province. Trapped in the fiercely traditional town, the young woman finds that her avenues of escape are all blocked. As she searches for allies, including a young boy, a school teacher and a mailman, she suffers from being raped by her "husband" and continued beatings at the hands of the villagers, her husband, and her husbands parents.

Cast

Production history

The film was primarily funded by private, overseas Chinese donors. The cast was primarily non-professional actors with the notable exception of the lead, Huang Lu, who was cast from the Beijing Film Academy before she had even graduated.

Prior to its release, Blind Mountain suffered from nearly 20 state-imposed cuts. This was done in order for the film to be allowed into the Un certain regard competition at Cannes by Chinese officials, as several of the cuts were of scenes that were critical of certain aspects of Chinese society. The Chinese Film Bureau policy also led to Li filming several alternate versions of the films ending including a more upbeat one specifically for a possible video or DVD release in China.

Reception

Along with Diao Yinans Night Train, Blind Mountain was one of only two Chinese films in competition in the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, both for the Prix un certain regard. A third Chinese film, Fengming, a Chinese Memoir by Wang Bing was a documentary and was a "Special Screening" not in competition. Blind Mountain ultimately failed to win anything at Cannes, with the Prix un certain regard going instead to Cristian Nemescus California Dreamin.

While the audience at Cannes gave a standing ovation to the film when it was screened, the critics have thus far been mixed in their reaction towards the film. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter, for example, is generous in his praise of the films social message and visual beauty, claiming that the Li "draws wonderful performances from a cast that includes local amateurs and professionals, including the utterly credible Huang Lu." In contrast, Derek Elley of Variety was far more subdued in his reaction, and in particular criticizes the films thin story and poorly drawn characters, such that "theres little emotional underpinning to the rote story." What both critics agreed was above par, however, was the photography of the Taiwanese cinematographer Jong Lin. Other critics expressed sentiments similar to Elley, but nevertheless found the performances effective, particularly by the lead actress. Reception was more positive with the Chinese press. Writing in Hong Kong cultural magazine, Muse, Perry Lam observed, What makes this film so heartbreaking and so hard to watch sometimes is its determination to let us experience without varnish the depths of the heroines despair and meet all the wretched characters who have a role to play in her tragedy.

On April 19, 2008, Blind Mountain won the Film Award of the Council of Europe (FACE), which is presented at the Istanbul International Film Festival by the Council of Europe to a film that raises public awareness and interest in human rights issues and promotes a better understanding of their significance.

Awards and nominations

Alternate version

The movie was filmed with several endings to satisfy the Chinese film censorship board. The rather short and abrupt ending in the international DVD has the main character of Bai Xuemei stabbing the "husband" who forcefully married and raped her, during a personal brawl with Xuemeis father after the police leaves the village. The ending that appears on the Chinese DVD is more of a "happy" yet ironic ending when the police shows up at Bai Xuemeis house days later, drugs and fends off the husband and rescues her. At the same time, other girls who were sold into marriage in the village are also rescued, but her best friend (who was also sold into marriage) suddenly decides to stay for her child and gets out of the police car. Bai Xuemeis child is left without a mother, and the family of her "husband" is left with no daughter-in-law. The ending concludes with text about the ongoing problem of human trafficking in modern-day China. More than 30 cuts were required by Chinese censors for it be approved for exhibition.