A Change of Heart
Through this film, the viewer can see the deity-like status that Chairman Mao attained not only within the country as a whole, but within the mind of a small child like Shui-Bo, who says he felt closer to Mao than his own parents. Even here, though, he suggests his disappointment (or perhaps enlightenment) when he visited Tiananmen Square to view Mao after his death and did not see the glorious man that had been depicted in government propaganda. In this sequence, a drawing of an elderly, weathered-looking Mao in his coffin is analyzed through a series of detail shots, emphasizing his wrinkles and facial mole.

© National Film Board of Canada.

Shui-Bo explains the emergence of Western influence during the years after Mao's death without changing his tone of voice, but altering the style of his images to reflect the new cultural influences: pop art Coke bottles and Renaissance icons replace more traditional images of Chinese illustration used earlier in the film. Even the recounting of the incidents of Tiananmen Square in 1989 are related in a way that is fairly evenhanded. Certainly, through his commentary, visuals, and score, Shui-Bo builds tension and makes clear that he was horrified by the fact that the Communist Party he had believed in so deeply (he had resigned from the Party a few weeks before) was now killing its own people -- "its future." However, I find it telling that, moments later, Shui-Bo ends the film by explaining that he soon left China for North America, where he "hoped to find no violence, no hatred, and no homelessness." Though the story ends there, the viewer knows, of course, that Shui-Bo undoubtedly found all these things, and more, in his new home.

Finally, the viewer gets the sense that what Shui-Bo longs for is a place where one can live in peace among one's family and work toward a better world. Never denouncing the principles of Communism that influenced him so strongly as a young man, he nonetheless acknowledges that the Party of his grandfather's era no longer exists -- and, perhaps, that the world he hopes for exists only in ideology.

Shui-Bo Wang worked as an assistant to animator Frédéric Back. He has taught illustration and done illustrations for The New York Times and designed the animation for the NFB/NHK co-production Another Earth. This video, distributed in North America by the National Film Board of Canada (order number C9198 030), is accompanied by a brief guide to developments in Chinese history. For more information, contact the National Film Board of Canada, PO Box 6100, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3H5. Tel: (Canada) 1-800-267-7710, (USA) 1-800-542-2164.

Maureen Furniss, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor and Program Director of Film Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. She is the Founding Editor of Animation Journal and the author of Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics (John Libbey, 1998).