FILM | Shooting the wolf

Jean-Jacques Annaud

From wine to fashion, China’s current love affair with all things French is on the up. But for veteran French film director Jean-Jacques Annaud it was surprising that this “amour” would extend to the film industry and himself in particular, having been ostracized from the mainland in the early ’90s following his controversial film chronicling the early years of the Dalai Lama, “Seven Years in Tibet” (2007). Yet upon embarking on his latest project, a Franco-Chinese adaptation of the novel “Wolf Totem”, the Gallic director found a newfound change in attitude by the authorities and a surprising openness towards creativity that was unexpected in a country he has come to embrace both artistically and personally.
Jean-Jacques Annaud, most renowned for having directed Hollywood films including “The Name of the Rose” (1986) and “Enemy at the Gates” (2001), found himself in Macau last month as one of the stops on the opening trail of his new film “Wolf Totem” which premiered here as part of the first ever Macau International Film Festival. During his time over the last year and a half living in the mainland working on the film and doing post-production in Beijing, the famed director has noted an incredible boom in the Chinese cinema industry. “When I started ‘Wolf Totem’, my friends in America asked why I was doing a film in China and I said because I love the novel and I think I can do a good movie out of this. But people thought I was totally cuckoo”, he remarked. By contrast, for the filmmaker, the mainland’s exponential growth in all things cinematic has been a boon as far as he’s concerned. And the figures don’t lie. “When I started there were only 3,000 cinema screens in China and now there’s 30,000. They’re opening one multiplex every day, a little more than one and a half”, he stated.

Set during the peak of the Cultural Revolution, “Wolf Totem” is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Lu Jiemin that chronicles the experiences of a young student from Beijing who finds himself exiled to the countryside of Inner Mongolia in 1967 to teach Chinese. While there, he strikes up a friendship with a local herdsman and his family and begins to garner an interest in the fierce wild animals that roam the steppes – the wolves. Yet according to Annaud, two of whose previous cinematic titles “Two Brothers” (2004) and “The Bear” (1988) are primarily animal-themed, “Wolf Totem” is “a story dealing with animals, not an animal movie”. Instead, in many aspects “it has a political hinge” by nature of its setting and time period. Consequently, the movie was potentially ripe for the censor’s red pen, which put other filmmakers off the project. By contrast though, Annaud found otherwise.
“When they came to me, they said we want you to feel free and have a free take on this subject”, he explained. “It’s a delicate subject for Chinese filmmakers – a lot of them were not interested in that because precisely it was about Mongolia, with wolves as well as Mongols during the Cultural Revolution – all that was quite touchy”, he stated. “And I felt even the people who bought the rights to the novel didn’t want American directors; they said American directors don’t understand a thing about Chinese culture, about Mongols, and they felt that they knew my work [from] before. They told me they liked my previous movies and they felt I was going to be able to do it freely. To my joy, I had no censorship in terms of screenplay, I chose my actors the way I wanted… I was very free”. Likewise, according to the veteran filmmaker, this freedom also extended to all aspects including the plot and the filming. “I was extremely privileged I feel; I was given a level of freedom that is very unusual everywhere in the world”, he added.
Yet for other movies the same certainly can’t be said. Addressing the question of whether China’s perceived (and real) censorship creates a problem in terms of film quality, Annaud was adamant that “the answer is yes”. “Because a lot of my great colleagues are frightened that their movie will be either cut into pieces or that they cannot bring projects that are close to their heart, that’s why they had to do something more historical”, he quantified; adding, “and yes this is a problem – not for me – but for a number of my colleagues”.

For someone whose obvious views on artistic freedom previously earned him the title of bête noire with the authorities in his portrayal of Tibet, Annaud thus seemed like somewhat of an illogical choice for a regime increasingly perceived by outsiders as tightening the reins of censorship. Describing the furor surrounding “Seven Years in Tibet”, the director was at pains to emphasize that he was never in fact formally banned from China as such. “When I shot that movie it was not my intention, but it was perceived not in a positive way,” he said. “I believed I was not welcome in China. And it was just the opposite”. So what prompted the change of heart? Annaud is forthright in his analysis: realism. “When my producers came to me I immediately reminded them of the story, and they smiled and said, ’China has changed’, and then they smiled again and said, ‘We don’t know how to do the sort of films you’re doing so we need you’. I like this very frank [admission]” he stated. “I never questioned their sincerity, and to this day it has been an incredibly friendly ride”.
Developing this newfound practicality, according to the director, surprisingly the powers that be recognize that they need to bring in foreign talent to advance their own domestic filmmaking industry. Consequently, they even encouraged him to put his own stamp on the project, even going so far as to influence not just the filming techniques but the relationship with the actors. “They said that to me very clearly, please try to also teach your ways of doing [things]. We don’t know how you do those films, so if you can, feel free to go with your style, what you’re used to doing. So of course I was very charmed by this, and of course it happened”, the director stated. “I felt that all the people on set – including my actors – were very happy to have another method of shooting movies, a different relationship with the director, and I was personally enchanted”.
Describing the filming process whilst on location in Mongolia, besides choosing to hire Mandarin-speaking local actors to make a Chinese language film, the seasoned cinematographer was also confronted with the choice of whether to film in 3D – despite its unpopularity globally. “We hesitated, I hesitated, in doing 3D or 2D”, he explained, but “I went for 3D because felt it was a better proximity to the wolves, that’s why I took this decision. But I’m worried because so many times the screening is too dark”, he revealed. However despite these concerns, the genre’s popularity in the mainland couldn’t be ignored. “China is the only country where people like 3D. In the rest of the world people don’t like to wear glasses but in China it’s seen as part of a big show, it’s seen like an extra excitement”, the director explained. Yet, by contrast to cater to international audiences, “at the same time in foreign countries we’re mostly showing in 2D”.

Scenes from the movie “Wolf Totem”

Similarly, despite the potential viewer numbers, adapting to mainland audiences’ tastes in other more obvious ways has caused unforeseen creative issues in terms of content. “The dark side of it is that it’s such a young audience; young not only because they never had any cinema before but also young in terms of age, they’re kids. It’s quite a difficulty for a number of established filmmakers in China because they have to make films for that audience”, Annand explained. “And now my Chinese colleagues are worried, because they cannot do serious movies any more. They have to please this young audience that is a video games audience, a martial arts audience. A lot of my good friends, filmmakers, are worried. Yes it’s good because the cinema industry is booming, but if you look at the kind of films they’re doing it’s not necessarily progress”.
Thus what could be termed a race to the bottom is sadly occurring in Chinese cinema, with a dumbing down of more complicated themes and independent films being sidelined in favor of superhero franchises to attract investment. “When you have to compete with movies that cost USD250 million or more, even though the film industry in China is booming, there are not many movies with very high budgets. In any case you’re competing with Hollywood products which are mostly franchise, therefore it’s a high-risk to put $250 million in a Chinese movie that may have no audience outside China”, the director explained. “Because that’s a problem I’m fighting against. I can see in other countries people are not used to seeing Chinese movies, they don’t know Chinese actors; they know Hong Kong action movies, but it’s restricted. That’s a problem”.

Speaking about the current craze to create films that are franchises and make millions at the box office, Annaud is adamant that for him at least filmmaking is an art form and not just a moneymaking scheme. “It’s so far from the education I had where we were never ever told about box office, we were only told how to make proper movies – the art of cinema or the art of storytelling or the art of visual effect”, he says. “But the art of box office? No. I’d never heard of that before. I think this is coming from the fact that it’s new [in China]”.
Yet the director nevertheless remains upbeat about the future of the business. “The great thing in our industry in China is that everyone knows that it cannot carry on this way by doing movies for immediate results”, Annaud continues. “And I can tell you that when I say everyone involved, that includes the authorities. They know they have to change. They are genuine in their desire to make sure that some proper movies that can carry the voice of China in film festivals. There are Chinese movies that are doing very well in festivals, but unfortunately they don’t play at home. When they play, because the public is not ready, they fail”.
As a result, the veteran director is using his fame to not only promote his new film but also Chinese cinema in general. “I really want to help Chinese speaking movies become more familiar to audiences, with the public. That’s why I’m going to a lot of places now to open the movie [Wolf Totem]. For a lot of people it’s bizarre – a Chinese-speaking movie taking place in Mongolia with Mongol actors and wolves – it’s a bit alien, that’s why I had to go [in person to the premieres]”, he says. “In a lot of countries my movies did very good business, so it’s reassuring for this public that I’m telling them it’s a regular movie of mine”.
Moreover, Annaud feels that China and Chinese cinema have a lot to offer, especially in terms of creativity. “I’m eager and I feel that international cinema needs the Chinese input. China is a very important county in the world and Chinese cinema is important… It’s a vast country and Hollywood is now a bit tired, not creative any more. Hollywood does franchise. Franchise sells because you do the same film again and again and people like the taste. It’s like fast food. And I think it’s very frightening for the diversity of cinema. When you look at the charm of Macau, it’s precisely the charm of something specific, something that’s absolutely international, but it’s even more international because it’s local and specific. That’s the great thing – to get something special that’s universal”.