Film Show 002: Shengze Zhu
An interview with director Shengze Zhu, whose new film 'A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces' has its world premiere at this year's Berlinale
Welcome to Film Show, a newsletter that’s run in conjunction with Tone Glow. While the latter is dedicated to presenting interviews and reviews related to experimental music, Film Show is a space for interviews with filmmakers and other artists involved in the film and television world. Thanks for reading.
Shengze Zhu
Shengze Zhu is a filmmaker from China who is currently based in Chicago. She co-founded the production company Burn the Film with her husband and creative partner Zhengfan Yang. Zhu has created four films, including Another Year (2016), which documented a Chinese migrant worker’s family across fourteen months, and Present.Perfect. (2019), which was a compilation film assembled from live-streamed videos that won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Zhu’s newest movie, A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces, has its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale, and is an emotive structural film that depicts contemporary Wuhan while gracefully grappling with collective and individual identity, connections between family members amidst the pandemic, and more. Joshua Minsoo Kim talked with Shengze Zhu via Zoom on February 27th, 2021 to discuss her new film, her feelings about her hometown of Wuhan, her favorite dish to cook, and more. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Hello, how are you doing?
Shengze Zhu: I’m good, how are you?
I’m good! It’s Saturday, I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can.
Right (laughs).
I wanted to start off by asking—what are all the different cities you’ve lived in throughout your life?
I lived in Wuhan, and then I moved to Hong Kong and was there for a year. Then I was in Columbia, Missouri for around three years, and then back to Wuhan. Now I’m in Chicago and have been here since 2015. It’s not too many cities.
That’s a good amount! Do you mind sharing what associations you have with each of them? Like, when you think of those places, what immediately comes to mind?
Food (laughter). Different food. The way I remember cities—and not just these cities but all the cities that I’ve visited—is with food. It’s the thing that allows me to remember something unique from each place.
What sort of foods come to mind, then, when you think of these places that you’ve lived in?
That’s a very good question. I’m trying to say stuff that I like… when I think of Chicago, there’s deep dish pizza but I really don’t like it (laughter). With Wuhan there’s Chinese barbecue—grilled meat. In Missouri there’s… nothing (laughter). There’s very inauthentic Chinese food… but the farmlands are really impressive! And Hong Kong has a lot of different styles of cuisines.
I like that you brought up food because food is a part of your films. It’s an important part of Another Year and then with A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces, it’s part of the letters—the text—that we read onscreen. With the first letter there’s the mention of chicken gizzards, and then in the third letter there’s the braised chicken feet and the person mentions how food is more expensive now. Is that an intentional decision or is that something you’re naturally drawn to?
I guess it’s just something I’m naturally drawn to. I didn’t realize it, actually, until you just mentioned it, because I wouldn’t say Another Year is about food (laughs), but yes, you’re right, there’s dinners—I didn’t make that connection.
Was your family close growing up? Who’s all in your family?
We were close, yes. It’s just my parents and myself—I’m an only child.
What’s like the one dish that your mom would make growing up that brings up memories of your childhood?
Maybe not from my mom, but my grandma—I grew up with my grandparents. My grandma used to make crawfish. It wasn’t like a stew… but like braised. Something like that. And it wasn’t the whole crawfish, just the tails. She stopped making that as she got older and older, so it only exists in my memories now.
Your new film deals with memory and the passing of time. I know you recorded parts of it in 2016, and then the text that appears onscreen is from 2020. When was the filming process for the film, exactly?
From the summer of 2016 to the fall of 2019.
And who are the four people who wrote these four letters?
Two of them are my friends or my friend’s friends. Another is a stranger I met on the internet who I got to know a little bit more. And the other is this original story that I read from the newspaper.
I see. How did you figure out the sequencing of images for the film given that the text was from last year and the images were from the years prior to that?
(Zhu’s screen starts to move). Sorry, my cat… (laughter). After I realized that I couldn’t fulfill the [original] idea that I planned for, I greatly changed the structure of the whole film. Before the title appears, there’s footage from 2020, and after that it’s from 2019 and then at the end of the film it’s from 2016. It’s all assembled this way—not very strictly—but overall it’s in this reverse chronological order. I wanted to use text to make this connection, to give some hints to the audience. So if you read the text again, you’ll notice that the first one mentions something happening in 2019, and the second has something from 2018, and then the very last one has something from 2016. There’s this very subtle relationship.
What was the initial structure, then, that you had planned?
I still hadn’t done the shooting yet, and I still had a long to-do list, but a large part of it was more of a landscape installation. I won’t tell all the details but it would have been more experimental: there would’ve been no text, no words, no dialogue, just pure landscape—image and sound. But I felt like I couldn’t avoid what happened last year while making this film, so I wanted to incorporate the text since I didn’t have any footage [of Wuhan during the pandemic].
That first shot is of security camera footage and it has a time stamp that says 2020, which brings to mind your previous film Present.Perfect. How did you get access to that, and what was the reasoning behind using this? Was it important for you to start with something from 2020?
Yes, and it’s because what happened last year had profound influences on the city, on me, on the residents, on everyone. I felt like I shouldn’t avoid it. It changed so many things in significant ways. While I was watching the recordings, I didn’t know that I wanted to use it this way—I actually didn’t even know if I wanted to use it. It was more like, since I’m here in Chicago and my family is there in Wuhan and they couldn’t go out, I really wanted to know what was happening there, what was going on in the street. I watched this footage, which was streamed on the internet to the public—everyone could watch it. It made me feel better, actually (laughs). I was here and I felt like I “escaped” [from Wuhan] but that didn’t make me feel better—it pained me.
When I watched the footage, I felt connected to what was going on there, I felt like I could experience it in a way. I knew I really didn’t because my experience was completely different than theirs, but I needed this, so I watched a lot of surveillance camera footage from multiple angles. And in this app, you see this specific camera because that location is close to the Yangtze—it’s just a few blocks away from the river.
Also, you see people doing things. There’s workers, cleaners—these are the people the city needs so that it can run during that specific time. So I wanted to look beyond the stereotypes or the judgments we have on this specific group of people because, at the time, those people really risked their lives doing what they’re doing. I wanted to use surveillance camera footage because it’s more neutral. Of course I could have asked my friends to film the streets for me, but that’s their perspective, you know? I don’t want that.
I understand what you mean with regards to having family elsewhere in the world and not being able to be there. Was making this film a therapeutic process for you then?
Yes, it was like self-treatment (laughs). You know, there were months where I couldn’t do or think about anything—I just needed to finish this film. I had been making this film about my hometown for a long time and everything that happened ruined my plans, but I hoped I could finish this. I wanted to—I needed to—so I could move on to other things.
Obviously Wuhan and the way it’s been portrayed in the media has only really been in the context of the coronavirus. And your film of course doesn’t fixate greatly on that. I’m wondering, what does Wuhan and the Yangtze River mean to you? And how did you try to accomplish that with your film?
It’s a place that has shaped my identity and it’s such a significant part of my memory, but it’s also a place that no longer exists. I have been thinking about this idea of “hometown,” and I think one’s hometown is not just a place geographically, but is something related to one’s own psychological state. It’s a place that only exists in memories. I had these strong feelings that my hometown had experienced dramatic changes throughout the past years, and this past year this feeling was reinforced—this feeling of change, of loss. Even though I hadn’t been there, I felt that way.
So [in terms of] what this city means to me, I don’t know. It’s a place over there. There’s distance between me and her, but it’s made me become who I’ve become. It now no longer exists, and it only exists in my memories. Also, there are many feelings that I don’t know how to say, that I feel are impossible to articulate. I don’t know if this resonates for you, but for me, there’s a lot of complicated thinking with my hometown because in the past I tried to escape from it, partially because of its own problems, partially because I was maybe too young and wanted to go to a new place and see the world—like every child.
What really impressed me about Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is when Marco Polo says Venice is his hometown, but he cannot speak anything of it, because when he starts to describe anything of this city, he loses the city little by little. That’s how I feel (laughs).
It makes sense! It’s so formative to who you are that to even speak about it is to cheapen and lessen what it is and has meant to you.
Right.
Do you think you’re able to pinpoint a way in which it’s shaped your identity? Do you think you’re able to say, “This is who I am because Wuhan is my hometown”?
I don’t know. Another thing about that book that impressed me is how it says that every city you see and get to know is based on your knowledge of all the previous cities you have visited. I hope that answers your question a little bit (laughter).
No, it’s good! I saw in the press kit that you mentioned this quote from Calvino that says, “It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.” I think it’s a beautiful quote and, when watching your film, I appreciated how sound also leads the viewer through its images. How were you approaching sound in terms of structuring your film?
Sound is definitely very important, especially in this film. It’s not just about the landscape along the river, but it’s also about the soundscape. Sound definitely adds complexity to the space and creates some spatial presence for the viewer. Sound also activates the space you can’t see on the screen, of things that go beyond the boundaries of the frame but still travels in this space. I’m fascinated by how much sound can do in terms of creating a space, and I think when we say “observation” in the context of filmmaking, we always focus on our eyes, but our ears observe what’s going on there too.
The soundtracks are carefully constructed—they’re composed, in a way. There’s a lot of editing in the sound, and there are multiple layers from different sound sources. I sometimes used sound to make the cut. To give a specific example, I really like the shot of the tiny people walking on this part of a suspended bridge. It was on a construction site and it’s after they were done working, so it’s not too noisy. I could hear the sound of birds—like they’re chatting with each other. And I felt it was like those people working. That really impressed me. It was like the birds were talking to each other and the workers were talking with each other—it was really relaxed compared to the shots [before] it.
At the end of the film you end with a song from the Wuhan band SMZB [“Drunk With City”]. For the entire film you hear the sounds of nature and people talking and then all of a sudden you come in with this punk song as well as this slideshow of images. Why’d you wanna end with this band and why’d you wanna end with these images?
That’s a very good question. It’s a totally personal reason—I just like their music. I wanted to use their music from the very beginning. For the younger Chinese generation, we would say Wuhan was a punk city because of them. The underground music scene used to be very popular.
They have this very famous song called “Wuhan, Wuhan,” but I didn’t use it because the relationship between that song and Wuhan is too specific. I wanted the ending of the film to be more open so it could resonate with more people, so I chose another song. Obviously [“Drunk With City”] is made for Wuhan but it’s not like you see it in the title. Rather, you feel it. And it’s more about one’s own relationship with their hometown, so I think it gives another layer to the film and adds to what I wanted to say.
As for the photos, part of the reason was just practical. I really wanted to use SMZB’s music but my ending credits are very, very short (laughter). [More importantly], because the film was in reverse chronological order, I could’ve ended with when I started filming, but I felt it could’ve gone further. The photos go back to the 1950s, and it tells a little bit about the city in a very simple way.
Another thing is that all the photos I used were group photos [at the Yangtze River]. The river is part of our collective memories, but everyone has his or her own unique memories or understanding of the river. And the same is true of the pandemic and the lockdown. We all experienced this thing together—not just the residents of Wuhan, but almost everyone in the world—but it affected our lives differently, it changed our lives in different ways. I wanted to explore a little bit about that at the very end of the film.
That’s beautiful, and it makes sense: SMZB are important to Wuhan, so you have that layer of history overlaid with these photos, which are just more layers of history. I love that. When you personally think about the Yangtze River, what’s a memory that comes to mind?
It’s the feeling of touching it. You feel the water move between your fingers, and it’s very, very subtle. I never tried swimming in the middle of the river like you see in the second-to-last shot, otherwise I would have a stronger feeling about its strength. When you stand by it on the riverside, you don’t feel it that strongly, but you still have those little touches.
Do you have specific filmmakers who you feel have influenced the way in which you create your films?
Definitely. Chantal Akerman, like From the East and News From Home. And all of James Benning’s films (laughter).
Of course! I was thinking of him while I was watching your film.
And also Peter Hutton’s films, like Time and Tide.
How do you feel like they’ve impacted the way you approach filmmaking?
It’s probably the ascetic part of those films, or the concepts behind the cinematic forms they were interested in exploring. It’s the use of long takes and the concept of time. I really like the way Chantal Akerman tackles political or social issues, the way she gracefully and elegantly captures a specific era or city.
In terms of duration, then, did you know what length you wanted your film to be from the beginning?
For the original idea, if I managed to add all the shots I didn’t have the chance to film (laughter), it would’ve been longer, but not too long. I guess for all my films I have a rough idea, like, “This one’s probably around 100 minutes or 120 minutes or 3 hours.” But I don’t have a precise idea and I don’t want to control that; the films naturally end and are as long as they need to be.
With all the films you’ve worked on and have made throughout the past decade, how do you feel like you’ve grown as a filmmaker? What do you feel like you learned from previous projects that you were able to apply to this one?
That’s a very big question. For example, while I was making my first film [Out of Focus], I didn’t have a clear idea about what I wanted to say. I was not very confident in it, and I didn’t really know what I wanted at the time. I was learning from other people, from all the people that I encountered, and from all the mistakes I made (laughs). Mistakes are really important. I know a lot more about my own practice and also about myself now.
With filmmaking, it really has to come from inside of you, and you have to know that part really clearly. That doesn’t mean that this part can’t change—it shifts and it evolves and it changes because you change—but you specifically have to know what you want to convey. And this is not just in terms of a message, but you have to be confident about yourself and who you are. I feel like I’m getting better. With the first film, I didn’t know what I was doing (laughter).
I do think this new one is your best film. And I got really emotional while watching it!
(laughs). Thank you.
It’s funny that you said you made mistakes. Are there any mistakes in one of your previous films that come to mind?
Especially for the first one. A few years ago I watched it again because they organized a screening here in Chicago, and while I was watching it I’d be like, “Oh my god why’d I make that cut” (laughter). But that was a really good experience, too, because I learned a lot of things from those mistakes. And mistakes aren’t just limited to what you see in the film, but what you do when making the film. You know, like all the decisions I made on the side with people. For example, for the first film, many shots are too short and I may have only filmed this one family only in the afternoon—and then I had to figure out how I could assemble this footage in the end. So I was learning from all these mistakes that I made.
That’s the beauty of it all—you learn from your mistakes and you become okay with them and then move on to the next thing.
Right (laughs).
With this new film, do you feel like you learned anything about yourself? Because you said you have to know yourself to make films, that they have to come from within. When making A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces, what do you feel like you learned about who you are?
Because I have tried to escape from my hometown, I was reluctant to talk about it. And this wasn’t just because of the pandemic—I was like that even before it. Wuhan is not a very charming place. It’s not like Paris or New York City—places people are proud of being from. I didn’t want to focus on my hometown and I tried to move to a better place, but I realized that there is no better place, and this doesn’t mean that your hometown is bad or good, it’s just where [you’re from] and it affects how you feel about the world.
And after what happened last year, I didn’t know if I should have been making this film at this particular time. All this news coverage turned Wuhan into a spectacle and, for many people, the first time they heard of this city was last January. I hesitated and was worried and thought I should’ve waited until it was all over so everyone could calm down, but I was like, no, I can’t, I just needed to make it. It was self-treatment. So I think I’m getting a little bit braver with facing things I don’t want to face.
That’s beautiful! I’m about to start crying!
You can ask some funny questions so we don’t have to be emotional (laughter).
There’s a question I always ask in interviews and I wanted to ask you: what’s one thing you love about yourself?
I don’t know (laughs). Can I not answer (laughter). Maybe the fact that I’m a foodie (laughs).
Do you cook?
Of course!
What’s your favorite dish to make? If you’re trying to impress someone or you have a big gathering, what’s the thing you’re going to whip up?
It changes, but my husband Zhengfan Yang, who is also my creative partner, likes this stewed beef that I make with tomatoes and red wine. It’s like beef bourguignon, like in France, but it’s also mixed with a Chinese style because I also use soy sauce. So if there’s one thing that I like about myself, it’s that I’m a foodie and that I like to enjoy different cuisines. I’m very proud of it (cheerfully laughs).
Thank you for reading the second issue of Film Show. Let’s all get a little braver with facing things we don’t want to.
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