Review: Coronation by Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei's documentary is about the pandemic in Wuhan

 

Let's face it -- 2020 has been completely shot -- thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and we still haven't tamed the virus thanks to people in parts of the world refusing to wear masks, or governments that didn't take it seriously in the beginning.

Over 1.29 million people have died since the pandemic began December 1, 2019, when the first case emerged in Wuhan, China.

Since then it spread to over 200 countries and now there are over 52.3 million cases.

Ai and his team edited 500 hours of footage

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei documented what happened in Wuhan with the help of intrepid volunteers who managed to get unprecedented access into hospitals to record first hand what was happening on the ground months after the pandemic gripped the Chinese city.

Called Coronation, the almost two-hour documentary is a series of vignettes and interviews with Wuhan citizens who had to come to grips with the reality of the virus and the decisions local and central governments made.

I saw the documentary last night with my friend YTSL, and also in the audience was former chief secretary Anson Chan Fong On-sang, Eric Wishart of the Foreign Correspondents' Club, and lawyer and author Antony Dapiran. We were in good company.

The opening image of Coronation is stark, viewers overlooking the high-speed rail lines in Wuhan that were paralyzed by the virus, completely empty, and the dreariness of the city. Three videographers record themselves driving back to the city and encounter a lot of police checks and frozen gas pumps.

A nurse helps an elderly patient with Covid-19

There are scenes in hospital patient rooms, watching an elderly patient in critical condition because one of the machines he is hooked up to is malfunctioning, others have faces as white as a sheet and are gasping for breath while breathing in oxygen. 

One gets access to the construction site of Huoshenshan Hospital, the emergency field hospital that was built within days to house 1,000 patients. Once it's completed, one of the doctors goes inside to report to work and he walks and walks along corridors until finally he reaches his locker.

Then there is the tedious task of putting on layers of personal protective equipment. He grabs a rubber glove with air in it to make sure there are no holes before putting it on. Very smart. Another person writes with a felt tip marker on his hazmat suit that he is a doctor and what his name is.

No wonder doctors couldn't go to the bathroom with all that stuff on.

A construction worker talks to his niece

Taking the PPE off too was another routine carefully monitored by someone in another room, instructing him what to do to avoid getting the virus on his own clothes and skin. Talk about an intense and stressful procedure.

One wishes the doctor would talk to the camera, but perhaps he was too hungry, as we watch him eat. Maybe we are already lucky to have such close access that we shouldn't demand much more.

However there are other stories, like the construction worker who helped build the hospital but is stranded in Wuhan and can't get out. He is stuck living in his car and charges his phone in a car park. He calls his young niece who reminds him to disinfect himself before they see each other.

It's light moments like these that keep Coronation not too sombre.

Perhaps one of the funniest vignettes is when a videographer stays with his mother, who is a die-hard revolutionary. She insists as long as you do what you are told, you will be looked after and shows off she has won many awards. 

Her son eggs her on to show them to him and she gathers a stack of red fabric books and dumps them unceremoniously on the table. There are certificates too that are rolled up like scrolls, though one is ripped and he jokes it's because it has Lin Biao's name on it.

A videographer (right) with his mother

Then there are people angry at the government regulations for not allowing them to be with their loved ones before they passed. This was not just happening in Wuhan, but around the world. Here, people openly complain in front of the camera, telling the world that they could not say good bye, or hold their hand as they lay dying.

One middle-aged son believed the government when it said there was no proof of human-to-human spreading of the virus and brought his elderly father back to Wuhan. He was soon infected and died; his son regretful, but wishes to do his duty to give his father a proper burial.

However, his father's danwei, or work unit refuses to allow him to retrieve his father's ashes alone; he must be accompanied by minders and he is adamant that this not happen. The danwei people realize they have not handled this carefully, but at the same time the son knows they are only doing their job, but he respectfully insists that he must not be accompanied by strangers who did not know his father at all.

The government tries to "disinfect" Wuhan

It's like a cat-and-mouse game that must have been infuriating for the son to deal with, let alone his regrets and mourning. He says that the government is so big there is no way one person can beat the system.

In a way Coronation is a warning for Hong Kong. We may laugh at the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy mainlanders have to deal with, but the reality is that Hongkongers will have to face this in real life very soon. In fact things are changing so fast that it is happening now, with Beijing destroying the veneer of "one country, two systems".

The mainlanders deal with authoritarian rule everyday, and some in the film know very clearly what is going on, others blindly following along. For some the pandemic has revealed the authorities' inability to humanize the situation, that everything is for the good of the state, even though it insists it is ruled by the people.

Coronation was remotely directed by Ai; the access the videographers got was impressive, though at times the camera is blurry and there are no second takes. It is a gritty film, though not as well produced as his previous work, Human Flow, about the refugees from Syria, Lebanon and Iraq who make their way to Europe.

Nevertheless, Coronation is an excellent record of what it was like in Wuhan, something the Chinese government cannot completely whitewash.

Coronation

Directed by Ai Weiwei

1hr 53 minutes

Review: Human Flow

Ai Weiwei follows the plight of refugees in 23 countries

Refugees are all over the world, but have you ever met one?

Leaving their home is their last resort -- it is not a decision they take lightly. Uprooting themselves, carrying their belongings and traveling to a place by foot or boat or train without knowing what the conditions will be like, how much it will cost -- if they will make it alive -- is very scary.

But this is what has happened to millions of people who fled Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in 2015 to Europe and Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei was there to document it.

He was moved by these refugees and wanted to document their lives and their deplorable situation in Human Flow. For two hours and 20 minutes, he goes to 23 countries and greets, walks and talks to refugees to learn more about their plight.

They include the Rohingyas, Eritreans, Sudanese, Palestinians, Afghanis, Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds. We see them up close, staring into the camera looking frightened and at other times up from above, looking like ants.

They walk for days to get to the border to find it closed

Mixed in between are "talking heads", people from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), political leaders, doctors, volunteers, even a Jordanian princess, explaining how they deal with refugees. Some try to show their compassion, others criticize governments for not doing enough.

I've seen footage of refugees in camps on the TV news, but this is watching them as they walk for hours, carrying all their items with them, or having to try to keep warm and relatively dry in a tent when it's pouring rain, or living in a giant hangar with subdivided compounds filled with bunk beds. Many struggle just to get clean water, let alone food and decent shelter.

You quickly empathize with them and wonder if you could survive such a terrible situation where no government wants to accept them and leaves them to fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere. The refugees feel they have come so far that they can't go back to where they came from.

Living conditions in makeshift tents are hardly clean

Interspersed between the different scenes are facts like the average time someone is a refugee is 26 years. Palestinians have been refugees for over 60 years. Again I would read about their struggle in news stories, but actually seeing their living environment really brings it home.

They can be in the middle of making bread in a factory and suddenly the electricity is shut off. The water is less clean and there is garbage everywhere. How do they endure this for so long?

Some of the images terrifyingly beautiful -- oil refineries in Afghanistan are set on fire as Islamic State retreats. A man with a mask calmly walks in his robes towards the raging fire with billowing black smoke. Or people in Kenya walking along the desert in a dust storm.

Periodically you see Ai in the shot, walking along or taking pictures or videos on his phone (some of it is used). Sometimes it seems odd to see him there, but at other times he offers comic relief, such as exchanging his Chinese passport for a Pakistani one with a refugee, or making chuar, or meat skewers over charcoal.

Refugees from climate change in Kenya cross the desert

But he wants viewers to see that he was there on the ground, unlike political leaders who don't seem to know or care about what is going on, and would rather close borders than receive these people who have suffered so much.

More people need to watch Human Flow to understand what refugees have gone through, and have a better appreciation for their own situations. Having to physically and mentally endure so much and be treated like less than human beings is shocking and sad.