The hacking of the airwaves of Chinese state television by the spiritual movement Falun Gong on March 5, 2002, as recounted and illustrated years later by cartoonist Daxiong.
Posted yesterday at 8:30 a.m.
eternal spring (EternalSpring is the English title) is this feature film which represents Canada at the Oscars in the category of best international film. Both documentary and animated film – a bit like Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman) in his time – this Canadian production, shot in the Mandarin language, recounts a significant episode in the life of Chinese cartoonist Daxiong, now based in Toronto.
Without having participated directly in the hacking operation to which the story echoes, the cartoonist was nevertheless pursued by the Chinese authorities because of his alleged acquaintances with members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Twenty years later, Daxiong traces the history of this operation during which militants wanted to counter the defamatory propaganda of the Chinese government by hacking the airwaves of state television in Changchun, a city of more than 7 million inhabitants. located in the northeast of the country. The coup was spectacular, but the repression was bloody.
Under the camera of Jason Loftus (Ask No Questions), Daxiong puts his drawing skills to good use (the animation is remarkable) to dive back into history, while finding some of the survivors, now exiled in Korea, Canada or the United States. The choice of animation and the wrapping in the form of a comic book thus allow the stylization of a story which, otherwise, would undoubtedly have been too difficult to show as it includes its share of horrors.
eternal spring clearly has a strong political connotation by denouncing the repression of the Chinese regime for any form of spiritual or religious freedom. Beyond this observation, this feature film also takes the form of a vibrant portrait of a man forced to uproot, who reassesses his own perception of an operation whose relevance he has already doubted.
eternal spring is showing in the original mandarin version with French subtitles.
Documentary
eternal spring
Jason Loftus
With Daxiong, Jin Xuezhe and Wei Lisheng
1:26