NYFF - Ghost Town

This shot of a statue of Mao standing in the middle of the "ghost town" of Zhizilou comes in a coda sequence at the end of Zhao Dayong's remarkable, nearly 3-hour documentary Ghost Town. Mao's cheerful, waving presence in the middle of an empty town square, seen from several angles, stands in mocking contrast to the harsh realities of life in this remote, abandoned town which we've just witnessed.

In the Q&A following the Film Festival screening, Zhao said that he lived with the residents of the town and filmed them for about a year. The way he decided to structure this material is what makes the film so powerful. It's divided into three sections: 1) "Voices" deals largely with the pastor of the town's Christian church and his father, filling in a great deal of background information about the government's past suppression of religion and showing how central a role the church plays in holding the town together; 2) "Recollections" shows a young couple coming to terms with the dismal economic choices they face, and also poignantly shows a divorced man who has become a pathetic alcoholic now excluded from the church; and 3) "Innocence" follows a 12-year-old boy, Ah Long, who was abandoned by his family and now lives on his own, surviving by trapping and eating small birds or begging for flour to make fried cakes. This final section brings the film full circle with a concluding scene in the church. After we've witnessed the daily struggles he faces, we see Ah Long, with his grimy face, sitting in the back of the church with his eyes tightly shut in prayer, when suddenly his eyes spring open and he glances around like a frightened animal, his innocence long gone. It's an image I will remember for a long time.