RIDM 2024: Among Mountains and Streams (dir. Jean-François Lesage) | Review

Two souls make their way through a forest in silence. Their steps are slow but steady, as the two men follow each other through this stunning natural landscape. Their unremarkable pace and muted attire could almost make these two exiled Chinese artists pass as anonymous figures. In a no man’s land that feels far from any civilization, painter Meng Huang and writer Ma Jian share an extraordinary moment. Their forest walk is punctuated by intense conversations, which grow deeper as the film progresses, between these artists whose dissident views have driven them from their homeland.

Pausing along the way or settling in small cabins where they spend the night, the two men share more than just bread and wine. They engage in lengthy exchanges. Their conversations, weighted with the burden of a scarred past, delve into the nature of their ideological separation from the Chinese government and their ways of cherishing and preserving their freedom to think and create. As they recount their experiences of the Tiananmen Square massacre, their discussions increasingly touch on existential themes. Life, death, commitment, the relationship with authority, and their approach to art and creation are all passionately, precisely, poetically, and urgently explored by these two artists, forced into exile to protect what keeps them alive—the flow of their thoughts and reflections.

Amidst a forest, beautifully captured by the slow, graceful movements of Etienne Roussy’s camera and brought to life by an exceptional sound design, the two men continue to move through a landscape that mirrors their inner states. A natural setting where streams flow tirelessly and no geological obstacle can hinder them. Any analogy to the flow of these artists’ thoughts is entirely fitting.

Formally, the feature is impeccable. Perhaps too much so? The presence of the filmmaking apparatus is evident throughout, yet it doesn’t detract from the experience. At first glance, one might regret a lack of spontaneity in the dialogue and the wandering of the two protagonists, but Jean-François Lesage’s concept is indeed an artistic project, one that crafts a fairytale around the story of these two men.

Indeed, the camera often follows the two men’s progress in the forest, peering through branches, suggesting the presence of a third point of view. At night, an owl watches over them, piercing the intimacy of the darkness. Gradually, the film hints at the idea of a pursuit targeting the two protagonists. For these exiled artists are never truly at peace, never entirely beyond the reach of a Chinese regime that considers them a threat. When, at the film’s end, a cabin goes up in flames, devoured by fire, it’s unclear whether it’s a cabin they stayed in, where they exchanged so many ideas, but it certainly looks like it. Could all those reflections they shared have gone up in smoke? In the film’s final sequence, the camera even begins to shake, intensifying the sense of an impending chase.

Ultimately, the formal construction of the film conveys the idea that these two souls wandering anonymously in the forest are only truly free and safe within the confines of their own bodies. Hunted, threatened by a regime that wants to silence them, they must constantly hide and keep moving, with no place being truly safe for them. This recalls the story of writer Ma Jian, who left to care for his brother, who was in a coma during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Paradoxically, his brother was protected from the authorities, who suspected everyone of opposing the regime’s martial law. In the end, for his brother, the best protection was his physical body.

In this sophisticated and captivating feature, Jean-François Lesage succeeds in taking us into the forest to meet two fascinating artists whose fertile and abundant thoughts embody a flame as intense as it is fragile.

Back in Quebec after spending several years in Beijing, the Quebecois filmmaker, who won the Best Canadian Documentary Award at Hot Docs in 2020 for Prayer for a Lost Mitten, returns to RIDM to present Among Mountains and Streams, making its worldwide debut in the 2024 National Competition. This is an opportunity to stand out once again in a festival that has already recognized him for The Hidden River and A Summer Love.