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Film: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012)

Cast includes: Ai Weiwei, Danqing Chen, Ying Gao
Director: Alison Klayman
Genre: Documentary (91 minutes) Part Chinese with subtitles, part English

You never know what you’ll learn from Ai Weiwei. “I have 40 cats. Only one can open doors,” Ai tells us. “If I never met a cat who opens doors, I would have thought that cats couldn’t open doors.” And indeed, the plump orange tabby jumps up, hits the handle and opens the door. So Ai wonders what else cats can do. “So far I’ve never met a cat who closes the door.” Despite his fame as an artist, another artist tells us, “He’s not part of the artist community. Ai Weiwei is just himself.” Ai rarely does the actual artwork. He prefers to hire assistants to implement his ideas. A critic tells us that, “He knows what he wants to say, and he knows how to say it with extreme accuracy.” That’s when we see the images Ai did flipping the bird to various famous Chinese institutions and historic sites. “Ai wants to shock you.” And he’s definitely gotten the attention of the Chinese government.

The government probably regrets having named Ai as artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium (aka The Bird’s Nest) for the 2008 Olympics. When Ai refused to attend the Olympics, the public took notice. He wasn’t going to “put on a fake smile for foreigners.” So when Ai later went to Sichuan Provence to photograph the devastation of the earthquake, the Chinese government tried to shut him down. But Ai is very resourceful… finding ways to call attention to the 70,000 who died, including 5,000 students who needlessly perished in a “tofu-skin school.” “Nothing happens if we don’t push…. I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fights I did.” But the Chinese government has made a special point of cracking down on artists… Liu Xiabo was jailed when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. When the government decided to demolish Ai’s newly constructed artist’s studio in Shanghai, Ai attempted to turn the event into protest art. Ai uses every tool available, including social media as part of his art. That’s when Ai disappeared.

In 2011, ArtReview ranked Ai Weiwei as the world’s most powerful artist. Although the movie primarily focuses on Ai’s human rights struggle, Ai’s creativity and artistic talents are readily evident. By the end of the film, we understand how he expresses himself with “extreme accuracy.” He’s not fearless. He knows the dangers, and that’s what motivates him. The filmmaker followed Ai from his time as a low-key irritant through his escalation into a primary target of intense government crackdown. The problem is that when the government took away Ai’s voice, the public found its voice. Just how many protestors can the government silence? The film gives us a partial answer to that question. The long list of artists who have been jailed is shocking. But is Ai Weiwei sorry for speaking out? Never. “Don’t regret. Retweet.”

3 popped kernels

How many artists can China silence? Ai Weiwei’s voice gets stronger with every government crackdown

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