Chung Kuo – Cina / Zhong Guo / La Chine / China (1972) 2 x DVD9, download for free

Jun09

Chung Kuo – Cina / Zhong Guo / La Chine / China (1972) 2 x DVD9

by movieworld on June 9th, 2016 at 11:26

Posted In: .Other movies, Asian, Documentary

The course charted by Michelangelo Antonioni in this film presents unforgettable glimpses of one of the world's richest cultures. Although he visits familiar sights such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, the film's focus is fixed towards the people themselves. Across China, from major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, to Henan province, people struggle amidst poverty and hardship to sustain the collective revolutionary spirit that liberated them. The film is an indelible time capsule of the aftermath of Mao's Cultural Revolution, the defining event of Modern China.

The documentary was made at the behest of The People's Republic of China, who invited Antonioni and his small crew to spend two months filming the 'new' China emerging in the wake of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. The resulting three-and-a-half hour film, which led an angry Chairman Mao to brand Antonioni anti-China and anti-revolutionary, is a remarkable portrait of an enduringly complex, enigmatic and ancient civilisation in the midst of adapting to Communism.

2 x DVD9 | PAL 4:3 | 208 minutes | 7.37 Gb + 7.91 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Italiano
Subtitles: English, Francais, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
Genre: Documentary

Disc One:
• Part One (Beijing and environs) (01:12:16)
• Part Two (Linzhou, Henan province; Suzhou; Nanjing) (01:18:28)
• DVDROM folder:
- scan of French and Italian booklets which accompanied original French release of the disc
- People's Daily (Renmin Ribao) editorial denouncing Antonioni ("A Vicious Motive, Despicable Tricks - A Criticism of Antonioni's Anti-China Film China") (English & Chinese)
- interview with Antonioni published in Film Quarterly in summer 1975 (English)
- EastSouthWestNorth article about the first screening of the film in China in 2004 (English)
- China Daily article somewhat reassessing the film in 2009 (English)

Disc Two:
• Part Three (Shanghai) (00:57:31)
• Extras:
- Le Regard Impose (2009) - Carlo di Carlo, friend of Antonioni, discusses the film (00:24:12, Italian audio, French and Chinese subtitles)
- La Chine de Mao (2009) - Pierre Haski, former Liberation correspondent in Beijing, discusses the film (00:26:34, French audio, Chinese subtitles)
- Interview with Marco Bellocchio (00:26:17, Italian audio, Chinese subtitles)
- Michelangelo Antonioni: The Eye That Changed Cinema (2001) (00:55:52, Italian audio, English and Chinese subtitles)
- Interview with Luo Jinbiao (attache in Chinese Embassy in Italy in 1972) by Shanghai Documentary Channel (2006) (00:22:09, Mandarin audio, no subtitles)