Worth: $13.00
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Cast:
Daxiong, Jin Xuezhe (“Mr. White”), Lan Lihua (“Xiao Lan”), Wang Jianmin, Zhang Zhongyu, Wang Liansu, Wang Huilian
Intro:
A beautiful blend of anecdotal animation that is held back by inconsistent messaging.
What is animation if not a vessel to pour out one’s thoughts, feelings, and memories into a physical space? A tool that allows creators to imbue imagined areas with depth and creativity, ones that are rooted in truth.
The documentary format is welcoming the use of animation into its artform recently, with last year’s wildly successful Flee (2021) a springboard for real stories that use animation as a cathartic release. Jason Loftus’ Eternal Spring is another attempt at this genre infusion, a beautiful blend of anecdotal animation that is held back by inconsistent messaging. It’s a film that explores the horrors of oppression at the height of the Chinese Communist Party’s power, but also a cautionary tale about media censorship that doesn’t add enough context or nuance for the parties that are being oppressed.
Focused on the illustrator and comic artist Daxiong, this one-third documentary format and two-thirds animation format tells the story of how members of the religious group ‘Falun Gong’ staged a take-over of China’s state TV in 2002. Starting with a beautifully animated tracking shot that follows the aftermath of the conflict (an event that sought to bring the populus’ attention to the persecution and slander ‘Falun Gong’ members were facing), the film weaves its thread back to multiple years before the incident.
It introduces each member that helped stage one of the most defiant acts of state resistance in recent memory, but also doesn’t give enough grounding for the emotional investment that the film wants the audience to feel. This is in most part thanks to certain elements of the film that feel like a promotion of faith more than an exploration of human resilience. While respect must be given to the members who died fighting for freedom, agency, and the downfall of misinformation; it may have been worth investigating the harmful components of ‘Falun Gong’ that ex-members have come out and spoken about, voices that are unheard in the documentary. Or, at least, this should have been acknowledged in some way. In an age where art struggles to exist without context, Eternal Spring needed that extra frame of reference to push its boundary toward both the informative and the inspirational.
Structured for the most part as a heist, the film’s sharply edited sequencing allows the beautifully constructed artistry to breathe and flow. It lets moments of tender recollection be captured with authenticity, ones that really allow the lived experiences to feel earned and attached to a rich tapestry of history. Memory and trauma intertwine in synchronicity when animation is used to sensitively explore someone’s past.
Stark, cold weather that lives up to the film’s name adds a melancholic texture to the subject matter it’s contextually tied to, a backdrop that is as physically dampening as it is spiritually. It is a shame that with such attuned technical elements, the broader socio-political insights do not strengthen the overall impact the film really wants to have on its audience.
Eternal Spring does a solid job at telling its story using a mixed media approach, but this is a story that seems to be more focused on borderline propaganda than a quest to freedom from oppression. A truly informative documentary would paint a balanced portrait of its subject matter, but Jason Loftus’ work here only goes a certain length toward achieving that.
