“The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation … and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity.”
--- Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.”
The search for origin is always both fascinating and frustrating. It is fascinating because we as human beings can never completely escape from our past and the story of the past can shed light on such ultimate questions as “where are we from,” “who are we,” and “where is our destination.” Although oftentimes futile, our efforts to search for the origins of things never cease. We live in anticipation when young, but we become nostalgic when old. On the other hand, the search for origin is often frustrating because the origin only exists in human conception and language. We might be able to see traces, residuals, and relics of the origin or beginning, but the vividness of its picture has already faded in the distance. Our natural urge to embrace the origin, therefore, can never be fully satisfied.
Ann Hu’s directorial debut Shadow Magic tells the story of the “origin” of Chinese cinema. It is a fictionalized account of how cinema was introduced into China and how the first Chinese film was made in the early years of the last century. The film’s narrative is woven around a few widely documented facts about the birth of Chinese cinema: that the first Chinese dramatic film, Dingjun Mountain, was made by the Fengtai Photography Shop in Beijing, with Tan Xinpei, Empress Dowager’s favored Beijing opera actor, playing a historic figure in front of a movie camera; that the shop’s owner Ren Qingtai and technician Liu Zhonglun were the first Chinese filmmakers; and that a few unexpected incidents happened, among which the explosion of a film projector, when attempts were made to screen American and European shorts to entertain the imperial court. Whether you are a film historian or simply a movie fan, it is always refreshing, perhaps a little self-indulging, to see your favorite subject unfolding on the big screen. With its lush look, richly hued images, and a magnificent score that makes the transition from documentary footages to dramatic scenes almost seamless, Shadow Magic draws an absorbing picture of Chinese cinema at its infant stage. It recaptures our excitement over the invention of the movie camera and evokes a feeling of nostalgia for the days when our cinematic innocence was yet to fade away. The film, however, is at its best as a dramatic rendering of the power of cinema. Despite its “Cinema Paradiso”-like passion and crafted camerawork, Shadow Magic is flawed with underdeveloped characters, awkward relationships, and, most of all, a self-projected image of understanding between East and West.
