No one knows how many thousands of women on the mainland have been abducted, raped, beaten, enslaved and sometimes literally chained to their stoves. In a money-dominated society, young women are often traded like stolen treasure. Baby girls are abandoned with less care than an unwanted pet.
All this is reflected in Li Yang's new film, Blind Mountain (Mang Shan), but Li says he's exposing something even worse. His second feature tells the story of Bai Xuemei, a woman in her early 20s who is tricked into going to the countryside for work, but sold as a bride to a farmer in a remote village. Li has a Hitchcock-like cameo at the start of the film, playing the human trafficker who sells Bai to the 40-plus Huang Degui and his parents.
Bai's mood shifts between defiance and resignation. We see her transform into a mother and farmer's wife, and her desperate attempts to escape over the mountains from the desolate village. After 95 minutes, the grim ending comes suddenly and unexpectedly.
Beijing-based Li says he sought to make a 'relentless, non-judgmental exposure of all kinds of human ugliness, greed, brutality and trickery'. He says his film is 'a call for the return of humanity, the return of love and the ability to tell right from wrong'.
Li's first feature film, Blind Shaft (Mang Jing), told an equally bleak story of migrant workers in the coal industry. It won a Silver Bear at Berlin in 2003.
In Blind Mountain, Li and cinematographer Lin Liangzhong again employ a documentary style in their filmmaking. Lin is best known for his work with Taiwanese director Ang Lee in the 1990s.
