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· 2022
1h 36m
Director Violet Columbus, Ben Klein
Starring Christine Choy, Wu'er Kaixi, Yan Jiaqi, Wan Runnan
Genre Documentary
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In 1989, documentarian Christine Choy filmed the leaders of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests who escaped to political exile following the June 4 massacre. Though Choy never finished that project, two decades later she travels with the old footage to Taiwan, Maryland, and Paris in order to share it with the dissidents who have never been able to return home.
While its structure is a little lopsided (the beginning portion plays like a doc about Choy) and the tone tends to sway somewhat harshly between justifiably acidic and politically enlightening, “The Exiles” is an essential look at “philosophical homelessness” and an expert example of documentary cinema as a truth-telling device.
The 70-year-old Choy isn’t the subject of their film so much as she’s the lens through which it looks back at yesterday and the fire that kindles its hope for a brighter tomorrow, but her inextinguishable spirit can be felt burning away behind every scene.
Columbus and Klein present a palimpsest of erratically overlapping perspectives. The results are untidy and unbalanced, but derive considerable energy from that eccentric approach.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Though a mixed bag as a piece of storytelling, the film’s greatest value for American viewers in 2022 is the truth it conveys to those hoping to preserve (or, let’s dare to dream, improve) a democracy facing immediate and very grave threats.
It can feel a little scattershot at times, but the film illuminates the considerable cost of dissent, both then and now. It’s at its best, however, when it gives Choy free-rein to speak her mind.