REVIEWS
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
REVIEWED BYDAVIDD’ARCY
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry follows the prominent satir- ical artist’s battle with Chinese authorities who are determined to keep him quiet. The documentary will be as much of an embarrassment to the Bei- jing government as it is a tribute to its subject. The bio-doc comes at a crucial moment for the
media-savvy artist whose constant exposure — from museums to Twitter — functions as an insur- ance policy against a regime where officials would prefer him gone. With an exhibition now at the Victoria & Albert
Museum in London and a recent gallery show in New York of 4 million ceramic sunflower seeds (a hymn to lost individuality), Ai Weiwei, aged 54, has made himself one of the world’s best-known living artists. The documentary’s television market will be worldwide, regardless of what happens next between Ai and Chinese police. Shot over three years by the American Alison
Klayman, this debut feature situates Ai in the Chi- nese scene as a clever rebel whose signature gesture was the raised middle finger, saying “fuck” to eve- rything from art history to the Chinese regime, and rallying an army of Chinese youth to do the same — a worrisome prospect for leaders in Beijing.
BERLINALE SPECIAL
US. 2011. 91mins Director Alison Klayman Production companies Never Sorry LLC, United Expression Media, MUSE Film and Television International sales Cinetic Media, www.
cineticmedia.com Producers Alison Klayman, Adam Schlesinger Executive producers Karl Katz, Julie Goldman, Andrew Cohen Cinematography Alison Klayman, Colin Jones Editor Jennifer Fineran Music Ilan Isakov
The warm, paunchy prankster is a ready-made
star; an affable anti-Warhol with a zinger Confu- cian-style line for every right he says the Chinese government is denying its citizens. Provocation has become his medium of choice Ai’s strategy to achieve autonomy and attention
differed from that of other artists. He returned from the US to China, while wary peers (inter- viewed in the film) sought freedom abroad. Ai also pursued tactics of direct and visible confrontation with police, which Klayman observes. The in-your-face encounters are performances
that are anything but risk-free. Ai is beaten and requires brain surgery in 2009. His studio is
demolished in early 2011 and he is jailed for 81 days. The film lines up clearly on Ai’s side, but the artist emerges as more than the hero and martyr of the week. Son of a prominent Communist poet, Ai does enjoy relative privilege — though we sense the fragility of that cloak. During the shooting, we also make the sudden
acquaintance of a baby son who was born to a pretty young woman with whom the long-mar- ried Ai had an affair. The martyr can be a cad, as well as a ham, though father and son make for some contemplative moments in a film that usu- ally surges through eclectically sourced images at web-speed.
n 22 Screen International at the Berlinale February 11, 2012
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