Black Coal comes in more than one shade

Top: Police captain and protagonist Zhang Zili (right) surveys the crime scene. Above: Zhang Zili follows Wu Zhizhen, the film's femme fatale. Photos provided to China Daily

Different titles in English, Chinese reflect divergent views of the same movie

The first ten minutes of Black Coal, Thin Ice convey a jumbled mix of juxtaposed images, including a dismembered hand traveling down a conveyer belt of coal, a gunfight, the messy divorce of protagonist police captain Zhang Zili, all split between dark, gloomy landscapes in an unknown northwestern Chinese city.

The film had two different titles, Black Coal, Thin Ice in English and Báirì Yànhuǒ (白日焰火), or Daylight Fireworks, in Chinese.

Director Diao Yi'nan (刁亦男), when asked why the film had two different titles, responded that Black Coal, Thin Ice refers to the setting in which body parts were found and Daylight Fireworks is a reference to the naive belief in surreal fantasy as an escape from the banality and cruelty of reality. Together, they form the key motive of the film - the grim nature of reality and the way we naively fool ourselves into believing we've escaped it.

Local police officer: This is the worst I've seen. Body parts being dumped, scattered across the whole province. Rumors of corpses in coal piles, everyone scared to come to work. If you can't crack this case

Méi jiànguò zhème pāoshī de, xiàng tiānnǚ sànhuā, rēng de quánshěng nǎr nǎr dōushì。Hǎoxiē chǎng tīngshuō méiduī xiàmiàn yǒu sǐrén, dōu bùgǎn kāigōng le。Rúguǒ nǐmen hái pòbùliǎo àn

沒見過這么拋尸的，像天女散花，扔的全省哪兒哪兒都是。好些廠聽說煤堆下面有死人，都不敢開工了。如果你們還破不了

Investigator: I found something! Liang Zhijun! His name is Liang Zhijun! I've got bloody clothes and a worker ID!

Zhǎo dào le! Liáng Zhìjūn! Sǐzhě jiào Liáng Zhìjūn! Zhè yǒu shēnfèngzhèng hé xuěyī ne!

找到了！梁志軍！死者叫梁志軍！這有身份證和血衣呢！

Taking home the Golden Bear for Best Film and Silver Bear for Best Actor at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, Diao's Black Coal, Thin Ice is the most recent addition to an ever-growing library of internationally lauded Chinese cinema. The film made $12.8 million in its first two weeks, making it the highest-earning Chinese-language film ever at opening. It was recently revealed that Black Coal garnered a slew of high-profile backers, including American rappers 50 Cent, Timbaland, and Eminem and NBA basketball player Carmelo Anthony.

The movie begins with body parts discovered in shipments of coal across one of China's northern provinces. Actor Liao Fan (廖凡), who won the Silver Bear for Best Actor, plays police captain Zhang Zili, who is investigating the body parts. Zhang is subsequently wounded in a shootout at a hairdresser's, which results in his dismissal from the force and the death of his two colleagues. Five years (and 20 kilograms) later, he's playing the role of detective when more body parts are discovered, prompting a game of cat and mouse that quickly turns into an existential struggle as he falls in love with a femme fatale who happens to be deeply involved with the murders.

Xiao Wang: This is no way to get sober. Steer clear of her.

Zhè yě bushì jièjiǔ de bànfǎ, nǐ bié jiǎojú le。

這也不是戒酒的辦法，你別攪局了。

Zhang Zili: Who says I want to get sober? I'm just looking for something to do so my life isn't a total loss.

Shéi shuō wǒ yào jiè jiǔ le? Wǒ jiù shì xiǎng zhǎo diǎnr shìr gàn。Yào bù rán yě huó de tài shībài le。

誰說我要戒酒了？我就是想找點兒事兒干。要不然也活得太失敗了。

Xiao Wang: What? Do you think anyone ever wins at life?

Zǎ de? Nǐ hái xiǎng yíng de rénshēng a?

咋的？你還想贏得人生啊？

Zhang Zili: At least it slows down my defeat a bit.

Zhìshǎo kěyǐ shū de màn yī diǎnr ba?

至少可以輸得慢一點兒吧？

Like an autopsy report, Black Coal, Thin Ice is dismally monotone in its uncompromisingly bleak portrayal of humanity.

The use of coal as the vehicle for the body parts is, without a doubt, one of the more controversial aspects of the film - a subtle jab at the environmental cannibalism of coal - but it also bares the ubiquitous nature of coal in everyday Chinese society. In this way, Black Coal grounds itself in the gritty reality of life; there are no real heroes, nor villains, and we're left to ponder how the intentions and emotions of these characters are molded by the predicaments they find themselves in.

Early reviews coldly questioned whether the art-house nature of Black Coal was fit for public consumption, and were quickly put down by its intense popularity among mainstream audiences. This unprecedented popularity has gained the interest of both film critics, who see the success of Black Coal as a new way of creating cinema that skirts political, artistic and commercial borders, and China watchers, who see the film as a seminal victory for its controversial portrayal of the coal industry and the vulnerability of the police.

Courtesy of the World of Chinese, www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/18/2014 page27)