Article Today: Behemoth review – a paradise lost to profiteers
There is an extraordinary moment about a third of the way through Zhao Liang’s masterly （adj/dav巧妙的，精巧的；名人的）documentary, Behemoth. The screen goes scarlet (深红；鲜红；淫荡). It’s not immediately clear what we are looking at. Then, as we watch, the hellish （地狱般的） red begins to take on a form – first, we see the flames of a furnace（熔炉） and then, shockingly, the figures of the men who work there, engulfed （淹没） in the searing （灼热） heat and noise. This is closely followed by a shot of a man, staring （凝视）impassively（无感情的） at the camera, his roasted skin studded with flecks （微粒） of metal. I sometimes complain about having to watch mediocre （普通）movies, but this rather puts that into perspective. At least I don’t have to chisel （雕刻）chunks of （大块）molten（融化的） pig iron from my flesh at the end of my working day.
Making reference to both the Old Testament – the beast of the title comes from the Book of Job – and to Dante’s Divine Comedy, Zhao takes a fiercely lyrical （抒情诗调的） approach to the subject of industrialisation in China and the rapacious（贪婪） appetites that drive it. Travelling around the vast, verdant（翠绿） steppes of Mongolia, the film-maker discovers a paradise soon to be lost to the open cast coal mining that devours（吞噬） the land. Zhao juxtaposes（并列） the two worlds in arresting single shots: the frame is divided between the lush grassland that still – just – supports a nomadic community with the ugly grey scars that used to be mountains.
Zhao, who shot the film as well as directed it, has an incredible eye, which was honed by his training and early career as a photographer. It’s perhaps not surprising that the immediate references the film brings to mind are photographic rather than cinematic. Panoramic（全景） shots of the mines, and the termite trail of （白蚁一样）trucks that crawl down the side of these gouged-out（挖出） wounds in the land, evoke （引起） iconic photographs by Sebastiao Salgado of the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil. There are also parallels with the work of Edward Burtynsky, whose large-format shots of factories and industrial blight were the subject of Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary Manufactured Landscapes, and with Dorothea Lange’s seminal（种子的；精液的；对未来有影响的） portraits of Americans displaced by the Great Depression.
Zhao’s fly-on-the-wall technique lets the image, rather than the people, do the talking. The characters in his film do not speak, emphasising the film’s recurring （循环；再发 ）theme of the dehumanising effects of the development we take for granted. Humanity takes a dual role here, both as the voracious（贪婪） behemoth and the animals that do its bidding （命令；投价）. This is brilliantly captured by a profile shot of a miner, slouched（下垂）, still wearing the breathing mask that makes him look like some semi-monstrous animal from a Hieronymous Bosch hells cape. And it’s reinforced by Zhao’s choice of words in the sparse, poetic narration （叙述；故事） that guides us through his journey: he refers to “the creatures who sort coal from rock”.
The photography is all the more remarkable given that Zhao shot much of it guerrilla （游击队）style, without the permission of the mine owners whose abuses of their workers are all too clearly on show. There is shocking disregard for workers’ living conditions – coal pickers grimly scrape off（擦下） the coating of inky dust in a filthy （肮脏） room, which looks like the inside of a diseased lung. But the bleakness（惨淡） is punctuated（强调） by dreamlike images of a naked human form curled （卷曲） in a foetal （胎儿）position in the blighted（枯萎） landscape. These images give us much-needed breathing space before we plunge into the next circle of hell.
Zhao’s use of music is economical but well judged. The eerie（可怕怪异） tones of Tuvan throat singers sound like ghosts from a past that is about to be obliterated （擦去；毁掉）. And there is a build-up of industrial percussion（震动） and reverb（电子回响）-heavy guitar, which bridges the transition from the mines to the iron foundry to riveting（吸引人） effect. For the most part, however, the ever-present noise of heavy industry – the rumble（隆隆声） of trucks, the tortured squeals（尖叫声） of conveyor belts（传送带） – forms the soundtrack to the film.
But for all the striking（显著） imagery, it’s the final scenes that floor us. Zhao follows the steel smelted from sweat and suffering at the foundry（铸造） to vast, empty developments: ghost cities, the result of greed and over-eager speculation（投机） on the part of developers. The miners, battling to breathe after the onset of pneumoconiosis, the nomads whose land is devoured and the iron-workers who pass each day in an inferno are all just collateral damage （连带损害）in a colossal （巨大）global folly（蠢事）.
Making reference to both the Old Testament – the beast of the title comes from the Book of Job – and to Dante’s Divine Comedy, Zhao takes a fiercely lyrical （抒情诗调的） approach to the subject of industrialisation in China and the rapacious（贪婪） appetites that drive it. Travelling around the vast, verdant（翠绿） steppes of Mongolia, the film-maker discovers a paradise soon to be lost to the open cast coal mining that devours（吞噬） the land. Zhao juxtaposes（并列） the two worlds in arresting single shots: the frame is divided between the lush grassland that still – just – supports a nomadic community with the ugly grey scars that used to be mountains.
Zhao, who shot the film as well as directed it, has an incredible eye, which was honed by his training and early career as a photographer. It’s perhaps not surprising that the immediate references the film brings to mind are photographic rather than cinematic. Panoramic（全景） shots of the mines, and the termite trail of （白蚁一样）trucks that crawl down the side of these gouged-out（挖出） wounds in the land, evoke （引起） iconic photographs by Sebastiao Salgado of the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil. There are also parallels with the work of Edward Burtynsky, whose large-format shots of factories and industrial blight were the subject of Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary Manufactured Landscapes, and with Dorothea Lange’s seminal（种子的；精液的；对未来有影响的） portraits of Americans displaced by the Great Depression.
Zhao’s fly-on-the-wall technique lets the image, rather than the people, do the talking. The characters in his film do not speak, emphasising the film’s recurring （循环；再发 ）theme of the dehumanising effects of the development we take for granted. Humanity takes a dual role here, both as the voracious（贪婪） behemoth and the animals that do its bidding （命令；投价）. This is brilliantly captured by a profile shot of a miner, slouched（下垂）, still wearing the breathing mask that makes him look like some semi-monstrous animal from a Hieronymous Bosch hells cape. And it’s reinforced by Zhao’s choice of words in the sparse, poetic narration （叙述；故事） that guides us through his journey: he refers to “the creatures who sort coal from rock”.
The photography is all the more remarkable given that Zhao shot much of it guerrilla （游击队）style, without the permission of the mine owners whose abuses of their workers are all too clearly on show. There is shocking disregard for workers’ living conditions – coal pickers grimly scrape off（擦下） the coating of inky dust in a filthy （肮脏） room, which looks like the inside of a diseased lung. But the bleakness（惨淡） is punctuated（强调） by dreamlike images of a naked human form curled （卷曲） in a foetal （胎儿）position in the blighted（枯萎） landscape. These images give us much-needed breathing space before we plunge into the next circle of hell.
Zhao’s use of music is economical but well judged. The eerie（可怕怪异） tones of Tuvan throat singers sound like ghosts from a past that is about to be obliterated （擦去；毁掉）. And there is a build-up of industrial percussion（震动） and reverb（电子回响）-heavy guitar, which bridges the transition from the mines to the iron foundry to riveting（吸引人） effect. For the most part, however, the ever-present noise of heavy industry – the rumble（隆隆声） of trucks, the tortured squeals（尖叫声） of conveyor belts（传送带） – forms the soundtrack to the film.
But for all the striking（显著） imagery, it’s the final scenes that floor us. Zhao follows the steel smelted from sweat and suffering at the foundry（铸造） to vast, empty developments: ghost cities, the result of greed and over-eager speculation（投机） on the part of developers. The miners, battling to breathe after the onset of pneumoconiosis, the nomads whose land is devoured and the iron-workers who pass each day in an inferno are all just collateral damage （连带损害）in a colossal （巨大）global folly（蠢事）.
