He travelled with a German director and a motley group of Chinese assistants to record on film the aspirations and frustrations of China’s youth. This book is in the form of a diary of that adventure in 1986.
Contractor sounds a warning to anyone planning to make a film in a closed, repressive society. Everyone is afraid. Friends betray you when you need them most. Before filming began, permits and clearances were easily obtained. The Chinese even agreed to share production costs. Trouble started when they realised the documentary was not to be about the pampered university elite but about the lives of the working young, the cobbler on the street, the shepherd in the field, the waitress in a noodle shop.
After nine months of filming, the director and his cinematographer found themselves under house arrest in their hotel, their phones tapped and the room bugged. "We felt so vulnerable, helpless and fucked up, we looked like zombies. We took off from Beijing International Airport without a single roll of exposed film." After litigation they got the film back but much of it was damaged.
Dreams of the Dragon’s Children freewheels through remote corners of China. Contractor sleeps in Red Army barracks and rides in Red Army trucks in pursuit of footage. He has the cinematographer’s eye for detail and is quite lyrical when it comes to describing the countryside of Szechwan province. But he shouldn’t have fallen for that government line that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen from the moon. It’s simply not true.
