Kings of the Sky (2004) Reviews

• Hanging out with Uyghur tightrope walkers in East Turkestan

  roland-1042005-11-21

  Here's another window into the remote reaches of the world, this time the Turkic-Muslim culture of the Uyghur people in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), the largest and westernmost province of China. This film is a splendid little documentary of the sort we're seeing more of these days, as venturesome photojournalists like Deborah Stratman boldly explore other lands with lightweight, compact digital video cameras in hand. Ms. Stratman, a Chicago-based documentarist, who was present at the screening to tell us the backstory of her film, bought an airline ticket to Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, went directly to the university there seeking a teacher of English, found one who put her in touch with a local journalist who also speaks English, who in turn arranged for her to meet Adil Hoxur, the star of her film. Tightrope walking (called Dawaz) has for centuries been the national sport of the Uyghurs (pronounced WE-gurz). Their province consists of the second largest shifting sand desert in the world (following the Sahara, I suppose), and the desert is ringed by towns and villages. Hoxur, a Uyghur superstar, heads the most famous performing tightrope troupe that tours these towns, and Stratman was lucky enough to meet him two days before his next tour began. When she accepted his invitation to tag along, she didn't know the tour would last four months! Dawaz is more than sport in a Western sense. Its traditions also have wider religious, cultural and political implications. According to myth, it was through the aegis of Dawaz performers that the Uyghurs defeated the tyrannical Han (eastern Chinese) rulers a millennium ago. Thus it is that Mr. Hoxur is regarded by his people as a champion of traditional Uyghur culture, at a moment in history when such a role is no small burden. Recent Chinese government policy toward East Turkestan is very much like its policy toward Tibet: fragment and discourage traditional religious and cultural practices, import people from eastern China to further dilute traditional influences and buff up the labor base, and extract natural resources for use elsewhere in the country. Mr. Hoxur's own family have carried on the tightrope performing tradition for 430 years. In an early scene, we see a young child training on a low rope, coached by an adult. Despite his long experience, Hoxur, who I would guess to be around 40, has had several falls, in the most serious of which he broke 17 bones. He's very good. At one point we see him tightrope walking blindfolded with large tin platters bound to his feet to prevent toe gripping and sensory input, just to up the usual ante. The most astonishing footage in this film features Hoxur walking a steel cable, enshrouded in fog, and stretched over a deep, heavily wooded canyon. I think this feat occurred at some time before Stratman's visit and was photographed by someone else, though this is not clear in the film. The cable, 1390 meters long, was wet from the fog, Hoxur tells Stratman, and at the midpoint he could see only about 2 meters in any direction. He became aware of "fear entering my mind," as he puts it, and began to pray to Allah. He then sensed "angels at my sides" that guided him safely across. Politics rears up on three occasions. Midway through, there is an unruly crowd scene at one of the troupe's performances, and we see uniformed officers controlling the people by swiping at them with tree branches. (I asked Ms. Stratman how she was permitted to keep filming this scene and able to avoid confiscation of the disk. She said that being so embedded with members of the troupe probably shielded her from official attention. She knows another western journalist who toured Xinjiang by himself and encountered harassment by officials over his filming on several occasions.) Near the end, filmed in a moving vehicle at night, a manager of the troupe speaks at length in heavily accented English about Chinese repression of Uyghur culture, including mass book burning. Unfortunately the audio in this segment is difficult to understand; it is important enough to justify being augmented with English subtitling. Finally, before the end credits, we learn in still-text that sometime after this filming, seven members of Hoxur's troupe defected to Canada. I should add that the main thrust of this film is neither political nor to feature the extraordinary feats of Hoxur and the other performers. Instead, Stratman is equally attuned to the ordinary daily activities of the troupe members, as they rehearse, warm up, dress in costume, make themselves up, put together or knock down their equipment, and travel on to the next venue. By placing carefully selected allusions to the political issues and clips of virtuoso performances within this context of the routine rhythms of the troupe's routines on tour, these more provocative moments seem to gain all the more power. This is a gem of a film. (In English, Uyghur & Mandarin) My rating: 8/10 (B+). (Shown at the 2005 PDX Film Fest, 04/24/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

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