The Shadowless Tower: how Korean-Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu thinks his new film maybe ‘reflects reality’ of changing gender roles in China
- In China, ‘women are more free and expressive than they used to be’, says Zhang Lu, whose new film features a spirited and independent female lead
- The Shadowless Tower is Zhang’s first film set in Beijing, and reflects his interest in how some neighbourhoods can stay the same in cities rapidly changing
The Covid-19 pandemic undoubtedly wreaked havoc on the world, but at least for one director, it served a purpose.
Zhang Lu, the Chinese filmmaker behind such movies as Desert Dream (2007) and Scenery (2013), had been teaching in South Korea, when he returned to China during the pandemic and was forced to quarantine.
“I was locked in a hotel room for two weeks,” he tells the Post at an interview at the Berlin International Film Festival, where his new work, The Shadowless Tower, has just premiered in competition. “In these situations, you start to have ideas and memories and I figured I really missed that tower!”
“That tower” is a 13th-century Buddhist temple, a white pagoda that can be found in the Xicheng district of Beijing, an area he knows well.
“It’s a very ancient construction,” Zhang explains. “They had an interesting technique back then. They considered the light. So, for real, the tower doesn’t really cast a shadow, or you cannot see it.”
It got Zhang thinking about the shadows we cast as humans. “Nobody cares too much about their shadow. It’s just a reflection of oneself, right? But in certain emotional set-ups, you might start to pay attention to your shadow. Why? Because I think the shadow is a confirmation of the self.”