How documentaries portray the 2019 Hong Kong protests, with echoes of The Hunger Games and V for Vendetta
- The anti-government protests had a cinematic quality that drew a variety of filmmakers to Hong Kong’s streets, from artist Ai Weiwei’s team to a war journalist
- Documentaries by a local pair, the journalist – Oscar-nominated Anders Hammer – a former railway worker, Ai and the Post offer distinct perspectives on events
In the first minute of Do Not Split, the Oscar-nominated short documentary on the 2019 protests, young protesters wheel a supermarket trolley down a street at night while urgently shouting at passers-by, “Where’s the Bank of China?”
Eventually, they locate a nearby branch. They begin attacking the security grille to get in; this process ends when one of them discovers the usual ATM entrance at the side. A surprised customer is hustled out. Flammable liquid from bottles in the trolley is sprinkled around. Within seconds, the space is alight.
How you view the people in this scene – as brave freedom fighters or a bunch of clueless pyromaniacs – depends on your point of view.
A little later, after a daytime stand-off with the police, another group of protesters retreats through some undergrowth. “It’s very dangerous,” cries one as they pick their way, tentatively, through the trees. Although it’s not identified in the documentary, which has no narration, they emerge behind the British consulate in Admiralty. “Don’t watch us like a movie!” yells one of them to gawping onlookers below.
That particular demand will remain unmet. Hong Kong’s 2019 protests – black-clad ninjas versus Storm Troopers, bows and arrows versus tear gas and bullets – had a cinematic quality. From the outset, there were deliberate echoes of such films as The Hunger Games trilogy and V for Vendetta.
Now the documentaries are coming, creating multiple versions of events. The titles of at least two of them – Burn With Us and If We Burn – come from a much-quoted Hunger Games line: “If we burn, you burn with us.”
Their directors bring varied experience to the task. Hong Kong-based James Leong and Lynn Lee, who made If We Burn, which has been shown at several film festivals and is still a work in progress, also made Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella (2018). The latter includes their footage from the night of September 26, 2014, when umbrellas were used to repel pepper spray and an image of enduring international appeal was born.