Poet and author Xi Xi (pseudonym of Zhang Yan) is one of Hong Kong’s most treasured writers, poets and individuals in general, despite the fact that she was actually born in Shanghai in 1938. Her works, and particularly “My City” has inspired writers for decades, and also Fruit Chan for this particular documentary, which captures the still prolific Xi Xi in the most thorough fashion.
In the 123 minutes of the documentary, Fruit Chan includes extensive interviews with her about her past, present and future, along with ones from writers, scholars, critics, poets and friends, all of which narrate her story and analyze her body of work. At the same time, the cameras of Han Yun-chung, Joey Kan, Kang Sheng-li, Siu Hing-wah and Wong Fai-pen visit and document the places and sights depicted in Xi Xi’s works, highlighting at the same time, how much Hong Kong has changed through the years. The pier of Ma Tau Kok, Murray Building, a photo studio, the labyrinthal apartment complexes and the studio she now spends her time making stuffed animals, her latest endeavor in which she also excels, all have their time on the screen. Fruit Chan, however, does not stop there. He also includes stop-motion animation, people dressed as puppets moving in the city, travel photographs from her many travels, segments from the movies she wrote scripts for and substantial segments of narration, in order to portray the humongous body of work, but also the human as thoroughly as possible.
In that fashion, the documentary includes extensive analysis of her work, and particularly “My City”, both in terms of language and context, along with her essay “Shops”, which was adopted as reading material for the Chinese Language paper of Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination by the then-Hong Kong Examinations Authority. Particularly her use of language and how it evolved in order to capture the ever-changing concept of the city gets an important part of the documentary, highlighting her effect on the local literature.
Her years of teaching, the way she became famous and impactful in Taiwan and China, her years of working as a script writer for Shaw Brothers, her editorial work for magazines and various publications, her poems, her film critiques, her bibliographical annotations are all presented here, showcasing an individual who is charismatic on a plethora of levels.
At the same time, her own narration of her mistakes and regrets, and the sickness that has incapacitated one of her hands significantly (which is why she took up doll-making) induces the documentary with a dramatic essence that also works quite well for the narrative.
Furthermore, her story emerges as one mirroring the one of Hong Kong, from the perspective of the insider, and to a point, that of Taiwan, adding a sociopolitical and historical element to the documentary.
The documentary may be over two hours long, but the amount of information and the number of cinematic techniques Fruit Chan implemented forced editor Pang to induce the film with a frantic (for a documentary that is) pace, in order to fill them all in. The result is almost dizzying and demands the viewer’s full attention, but also mirrors the rhythm of life in Hong Kong, in another contextual trait of the movie.
“My City” is a as multileveled as Xi Xi and emerges as a great documentary about a truly important individual.
