When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun, due for general release tomorrow, and also due to show in Ireland, is a documentary about the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It showed tonight in the Curzon Soho, with a panel discussion. Now, the last time I wanted to go to a film here with a panel discussion, it sold out at the last minute - so this time, I booked a ticket.
Of course, this time I didn't need one - it was quite full, but there were empty seats. Figures. Interestingly, as I was just looking at the Curzon website, they describe the Curzon Mayfair as the jewel in their crown. You what?! Well, I've never been in Screen 1 there - maybe it's worth the description. The rest certainly isn't - the Curzon Soho is much more impressive, with a café at street level, a bar downstairs and the cinema one below that.
We were informed that the discussion would take place after the film. The film itself, as we were to learn during the discussion, took seven years to make, and contains much striking imagery. As you'd expect, many shots of mountains, both snowy and not, some deep-throated chanting, and lots of footage of the Dalai Lama. A sad and familiar tale, this was made more interesting by coverage of the protests surrounding the Beijing Olympics, particularly a rally held in San Francisco. This was attended by Richard Gere, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and by at least two irate Chinese, who were interviewed for the film, and were convinced that the Dalai Lama was in the habit of having people killed and using their skulls as candlesticks. Apparently, this is what they teach them in school. I'm not exaggerating.
Other worrying aspects of the film were the tales of forced migration of Tibetans to the rest of China, and moving Chinese to Tibet in their place - and the despair in the faces of young exiled Tibetans. As one young Tibetan woman, a member of Tibetan Students in Exile, remarked, with tears running down her face - "What are we expected to do?!" Really, the cause seems a hopeless one, with members of the Tibetan government in exile fighting amongst themselves, and many disagreeing with the Dalai Lama's advocacy of a "middle ground", which they see as giving up the dream of independence. The film is excellent at presenting differing points of view. Could do with a bit of trimming.
The panel discussion afterwards contained both a panel and a discussion. How novel! As the director explained, with multiple camera crews, and many years of shooting, they ended up with 800 hours of footage. Ok, well, to get it down to 2 is quite a feat then. The panel also included the head of the UK Free Tibet movement, and the representative of the UK Dalai Lama's office. Now, he had many interesting things to say. Like - isn't it interesting how the Save the Pandas movement gets more coverage than Free Tibet? and how people who contact the Dalai Lama's office can be divided into two categories - the givers and the takers. The takers are those who just want to be seen with the Dalai Lama, to have him come visit their university or whatever. He includes, as he says, "international peace organisations" in that category. As he says, "isn't it interesting that they've never once offered to help?" He also mentioned the incident in Woolwich, when describing how a young exiled Tibetan saw that as the only way to get results. And he pointed out all the self-immolation of Tibetans there have been, and how funny it is that it gets hardly any media coverage in the West.
When the discussion was opened to the floor, for quite a while, the floor was hogged by an elderly lady in the front, who'd never heard of the Woolwich attack, and wanted it explained to her. Cue much sighing from the back, where others wanted in on the discussion. Finally, we were handed "Free Tibet" fliers on the way out.
Ironically, I then went for a Chinese. :-) Well, when in Chinatown.. Made sure to hide the fliers in my pocket first. I went to my usual, The Black Bean. I tell you though, I think I'll shop around in future. The service was brusque, the spring rolls were actually caked in grease, and the Szechuan was nothing special. I didn't leave a tip.
Back to Ireland tomorrow for a few days. Next scheduled event - As Is, in the Finborough Theatre, next Thursday. Oh, and my guidebook to Lille arrived today. :-)
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