By Joanne Sargent
Special to the Observer
Celebrated Chinese filmmaker Yi-Mou Zhang first released One Second in 2019.
It was rumoured the film might win top prize at the Berlin Film Festival when the Chinese Censorship Bureau pulled the movie for “technical reasons.”
Authorities in China thought a prize like that might attract too much attention to a story that reflects the poverty caused by the Cultural Revolution. Specifics of what additions and edits were made are unclear, but we can now show the revised version of One Second, a story about a fugitive’s obsessive search for a particular strip of film.
It’s 1975 and our nameless fugitive has escaped from a prison labour camp where he was sent for being a “bad element.” He stumbles into a town, desperate to catch that night’s screening of “Heroic Sons and Daughters” in which his daughter, who denounced him when he went to prison, makes a one-second appearance. Seeing that glimpse of his daughter would be worth adding years to his sentence. Alas, he is too late and the reels are already being loaded to be taken to the next town. He spots a young orphan girl stealing one of the film canisters and running off into the darkness, which sets off an amusing back and forth battle over a single reel of film, each with a valid reason for wanting it.
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By the time that canister arrives at the larger outpost where the movie will be played, the situation is complicated as the courier carrying the rest of the canisters for the night’s showing arrives with one of the reels unraveled and being dragged on the ground. Due to the damage to the reel, Mr. Movie, the government-appointed projectionist, announces that movie night is cancelled. The townspeople almost revolt since it’s their only form of entertainment and they are inspired to band together to try to repair and clean the damaged film, our fugitive’s only chance to see it.
One Second presents the poverty much of China experienced after the Revolution and how movies were a way to inspire small moments of hope in a bleak situation — even if the films were more communist propaganda. The movie is a tribute to the struggles of a man whose life was stolen from him and the friendship that developed between two victims of the regime.
One Second is subtitled and plays at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15 at the Salmar Classic.
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