Dongnan Chen’s 14 Paintings does exactly what its descriptive title suggests it will.
Across the course of its 24-minute running time, this serene documentary stitches together 14 chapters, each of which depicts a painting in its current location. Around each one, life carries on as normal, giving a gradually forming sense of Chinese society through the dozen or so single-take shots representing the artworks. The pieces themselves are all made by practitioners from Dafen village, a suburb of Shenzhen in the Guangdong province. It was once a hotbed for now frowned-upon reproductions of famous Western art which – as a result of government reforms – has had to transition towards producing original art.
This particular situation provides some of the innate curiosity for Chen’s film, which pairs static shots of the milieu in which each painting is displayed with a text quote from the relevant creator. These range from epically scaled images of a charging bull or a Van Gogh-inspired wheat field which are both painted onto exterior walls to a forest scene or abstract colour fields that adorn offices and apartments. The comments are equally varied. Some are more reflective comments on the cultural and economic viability of art and the impacts of the change to the nature of what is being produced in Dafen. Others are more laconic or simply lament the effort required to make a living.
“Does it matter who painted this?” Asks one of the artists. “I work several jobs to support my family. No time for an interview.” As Chen’s film cobbles together these various gobbets of explanation and we are allowed to observe the comings and goings around the paintings, a national portrait coalesces as if from nowhere. None of the scenes have specifically pointed commentary but they join up with one another to raise questions about the ultimate value and relevancy of artistic work in a system in which both state intervention and market forces determine output as much as creative inspiration. Like Dafen itself, the impression 14 Paintings gives of China is a country undergoing significant change, and if its painterly microcosm is extrapolated out, Chen is keen that questions continue to be asked about its direction.
Director: Dongnan Chen
Producers: Dongnan Chen, Jisong Li, Heying Chen
Cinematography: Xiao Xiao
Editing: Xiao Yang, Sisi Chen
Sound: Pandy Peng, Bobo Lau
Production companies: Tail Bite Tail Films (China) Venue: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Competition for Short Documentary)
In Chinese
24 minutes
