Crime and Punishment
Zhao Liang / CN, 2007 / 122 min.
A police station on the border between China and North Korea: trainee officers brutally maintain order, almost to an absurd degree. This revealing portrait by documentary maker Zhao Liang was chosen by Albert Serra, who features in our exhibition.
What goes on in a Chinese village close to the border with North Korea? Not much, apart from some misdemeanours by the local petty thief. The organisers of an illegal mahjong game are also not exactly major-league villains. But the officers at the local police station – new recruits in training– believe they have to come down hard on every single (potential) transgression of the law.
Crime and Punishment shows life in present-day China, where the apparatus of the State is omnipotent. The fact that Zhao Liang was given permission to show these images is rather astonishing – or maybe the censors wanted to stress that no citizen of China can escape the long arm of the law?
On Saturday June 22 (18:30), there will be a Q&A with director Zhao Liang after the screening.
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Director
Zhao Liang
Production year
2007
Country
CN
Original title
Zui Yu Fa
Length
122 min.
Language
Chinese
Subtitles
ENG
Format
DCP
Part of
Albert Serra
Eye Filmmuseum presents the first exhibition in the Netherlands about the work of Catalan film and theatre director Albert Serra. Transforming the entire exhibition space into an immersive stage, Serra orchestrates nocturnal and clandestine encounters where theatre, cinema, and art converge.
Why in Eye
Bizarre, intriguing film about a Chinese police station on the border with North Korea. Zhao Liang’s depiction of the Chinese state apparatus raises more abstract questions about the arbitrariness and ‘performativity’ of power relations in general. Unforgettable.
Thijs Havens
Programmer Eye Filmmuseum
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