In the cinematic essay “Hong Se De Lian He Wu Wei Ming Xing”, or The Red Face and five stars,

the topic of face and face behaviour in chinese contemporary society is explored. A visual kaleidoscope,

an overwhelming flow of impressions a cultural approach.

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SYNOPSIS

Mutual intercultural understanding in a world becoming a global village gains more and more

relevance regarding harmonious co-living.

The influence of the People’s Republic of China in the areas of economy and politics requires

a confrontation with the Chinese maniére d’être, meaning the functioning of society and the way of

living.

“Mianzi” or “lian”, two words that describe the social code of “face” in the middle-land appear

to be an utterly relevant key when it comes to an approach of understanding Chinese culture.

“The face is the most highly regarded earthly possession. It may cause murder or suicide

and can make a prestigious man out of a lampooned one.” the off voice states in the film. The

coercion to maintain face results not only from the need to maintain one’s own facade, but also to

keep the face of the whole group that the individual is necessarily always related to – in Chinese

culture the individual is always understood as part of a collective rather than standing on its own. In

a collective society like that of China, the group and its will and needs is always more relevant than

those of the individual.

HONG SE DE LIAN HE WU WEI MING XING explores, via a very unique and idiosyncratic filmic

approach, the individual experience and search for the results of face and face behaviour in

Chinese society: How does it affect the individual in its psychology and its way of living? How does

it affect the society in its inherent rules? How does it affect the functioning in a wider, more political

and global setting? The director’s voice-over leads somehow through the film, seeking to reply to

the initial question, “China, who are you?”.

The film works as a collage of different opinions and statements, putting together phrases

from interviews, scientific texts, newspaper articles and books. This rhapsodic, associative

approach is a discourse on the film-making itself.

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE

When I started to make this film, my focus and intention were completely different. I was

full of prejudices, influenced by what I had learned about The People’s Republic of China

in western media and from western organisations. The confrontation of getting to know the

country and the people brought a turn of 180 degrees into my intention, which became to

explore the Chinese culture and society in order to find the key for understanding it and its

way of functioning when coming from a western background. The key for me turned out to

be “mianzi” or “lian”, which can be translated as “face” – meaning reputation, facade or

social status.

This film is an approach to what face is and how it works on an individual, societal and

political level.

Whilst already being totally inside the process of film-making, I realised how big and

relevant was the topic that I was dealing with and that it would be impossible to find a

universally true statement. So, I decided that this film had to be the documentation of my

very personal exploration of the topic and that the collage of different interview pieces and

different texts from scientific books and newspaper articles had to be glued together by

myself – my voice – leading through the jungle of statements. It was always important

to me that this should be a very musical film in terms of editing and composition, I always

wanted to play a lot with atmospheres created by the mere image or the mere sound. So

this piece is not only a statement of exploration of the Chinese culture but also and as well

a statement of exploration of the film medium itself.