Chinese directorWang Bingis more than content to take his time.
His documentaryYouth (Spring), which premiered in competition atCanneslast Thursday, runs three-and-a-half hours long.
It takes some moments for the audience to realize he is nude.
Composer Wang Xilin in ‘Man in Black’Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
He holds a railing as he makes his way along an aisle.
As he descends a staircase a classical score erupts with percussive force.
This is Wang Xilin, one of Chinas leading classical composers, laid bare.
Wang Xilin in ‘Man in Black’Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
The camera follows as he makes his way to the stage, entering a key light.
It pans around his feet, circles his torso, settles on his striking face.
Words pour out of him, but this is not a standard interview by any means.
Not only is the subject unclothed, but he seems completely unaware of the camera.
This is a person revisiting his past, confronting painful memories, alone.
But he chafed against the ideological bent of the instruction.
I was tired of their preaching, he says.
They said to compose music, first and foremost you need correct thought and a knowledge of Marxism-Leninism.
He split from the Communist Party, a decision that he says earned him abuse from his fellow students.
The whole class condemned me for wrong thought.
It was to be an introduction into the price of going against Communist Party orthodoxy.
Other composers took their own lives before authorities could annihilate them.
Despite the intense repression, Wang managed to write numerous symphonic works.
His compositions, shattering in their intensity and foreboding themes, are interspersed in the documentary.
At times when he is unburdening himself of his memories, the score swells, drowning out his words.
The music speaks for itself.
Off to one side of the stage, a piano is illuminated in a beam of light.
Wang periodically takes a seat at it, playing his ominous music.
At other moments he sings operatically, his powerful voice as resonant as a monks chanting.
Man in Blackconstitutes one of the most unique biographical documentaries Ive ever seen.
The film was shot in May 2022 at the Theatre des Bouffes in Paris.
Elegant camera moves by Caroline Champetier feel as gracefully choreographed as a ballet.
As to why Wang Xilin is nude throughout the film, I cannot say.
And stripped bare of any artifice or armature.
A portrait of an artist who brought beauty and creativity into the world at immense personal sacrifice.
