Margaret Mead ’17: Almost Heaven

The only thing that frightens seventeen-year-old Ying Ling more than ghosts is China’s sky-high teen unemployment rates. For the sake of her family, she will do her best to soldier through the mortician training program at an enormous factory-like mortuary over one hundred miles from her home. However, she will also make friends and start asserting her independence in Carol Salter’s observational documentary Almost Heaven, which screens during the 2017 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

We never learn how Ying Ling manages to hire on with the Mingyang Mountain Funeral Home, but she is clearly uncomfortable with the nature of the work. However, she often gets timely assistance from a fellow trainee with slightly more experience. For now, they are platonic friends, but the potential for a more romantic relationship is as plain as the nose on the corpse they are grooming.

Ying Ling is a good kid, who struggles with loneliness, but also starts to develop a clear sense of herself. Not to be spoilery, but the ending implies she will get some happiness out of life which is a genuine relief. She is indeed the sort of guileless documentary subject we might otherwise worry about.

In fact, watching Almost Heaven makes us suspect Salter maybe had a more Wisemanesque film originally in mind, but let the charismatic Ying Ling assert control of the film. Yet, she is arguably quite representative of a wide swath of the Chinese population. She and her family face some serious but not dire challenges. She might just be more resilient than most.

Salter could do far worse than periodically revisit Ying Ling in the Michael Apted tradition. Almost Heaven even ends at a perfect transition point to start the next doc, rather than waiting seven years. Regardless, it certainly puts an acutely human face on Chinese unemployment and the increasingly migratory way of life for the Mainland’s working class and even lower middle class. Highly recommended, Almost Heaven screens this Sunday (10/22), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

Margaret Mead ’17: So Long Asleep

It has been a long time coming, but the suffering of Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army—the wianbu comfort women—are finally starting to be acknowledged by NGOs and documentary filmmakers. However, the plight of hundreds of thousands of Korean farm-boys pressed into hard (often even fatal) involuntary labor is still a story that remains largely untold (Battleship Island addresses the slave labor, but its principal characters are far from representative). Chung Byung-ho, a U.S.-trained Korean anthropologist and Yoshihiko Tonohiro, chief priest of the Ichijoji Buddhist temple joined forces to honor the memories and repatriate the remains of 155 Korean young men who perished while constructing the Uryu Dam in Hokkaido. David Plath documents their long-deferred homecoming in So Long Asleep: Waking the Ghosts of War, which screens during the 2017 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

The area surrounding Lake Shumarinai has recorded some of Japan’s lowest temperatures ever, so you can imagine what the working conditions were like for the young Koreans, who were essentially slave laborers. The discovery of their remains was initially a matter of chance. Tonohiro and some colleagues had come to admire the dam, where they were approached by the caretaker of the local temple, which had storeroom full of memorial tablets. These tablets were a bit different, in that they were inscribed with the deceased’s native Korean name and their assigned Japanese name.

Tonohiro soon discovered the remnants of bodies still collectively buried at the former municipal graveyard. The priest began an effort to excavate and repatriate the remains, but the project really took shape when Chung started directing their efforts. Many Korean, Japanese, and Zainichi Korean-Japanese provided the labor, embracing the project’s spirit of healing. Yet, not quite everyone fully came on board. Japanese war crimes-deniers successfully manipulated the local bureaucracy to thwart a memorial, while North Koreans who participated in the excavations, were not allowed to continue to South Korea for the internment ceremony.

Since the mass graves were located on their ancestral lands, the indigenous Ainu people prepared special rituals for the reclamation process, which makes So Long Asleep an especially fitting selection for the Mead fest. The film is also relevant to students of comparative religion, because it captures Buddhist, Catholic, and Shamanistic ceremonies performed for the 155 repatriated remains.

In terms of production values, So Long Asleep is pretty no-frills, but it captures some deeply moving moments. Frankly, it is surprising how much emotional kick this film has, since most of wartime laborers’ friends and family are now deceased. Yet, many young Korean and Japanese people recognized the enormity of their fate and became genuine surrogate mourners.

So Long Asleep gives us a thimble-full of hope Japan and South Korea can finally heal their wounds and resentments stemming from the war and occupation (to unite against a common threat to regional stability, the Communist PRC regime). It is also an inspiring example of faith (Buddhism, Shamanism, Catholicism) in action, making a constructive difference in society. Highly recommended, So Long Asleep screens this Saturday afternoon (10/21), as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.

Margaret Mead ’17: Chomo (short)

Since the Dalai Lama and the leadership of Tibetan Buddhism were forced into exile, they have spread their wisdom and faith much wider around the world than would have otherwise been possible. It has also been a two-way exchange. In recent years, educational opportunities have expanded tremendously for Tibetan Buddhist nuns, at least for those living outside Tibet. The first class of nuns are poised to take the Geshema degrees following the requisite seventeen years of study. This is an especially significant milestone for a young nun contemplating her future in Maayan Arad’s short documentary Chomo, which screens during the 2017 Margaret Mead Film Festival.

Lobsang Chomo (“nun” in her local dialect) made the arduous journey to Dharamshala expressly so she would have educational opportunities that are not available in her native Tibet, where the Communist government insists it has the right to set policies for the religious faith. When we meet her, she has been studying in earnest for several years and has been recognized as one of her nunnery’s top doctrinal debaters. She is on track to sit for her Geshema exam (in a mere fourteen or fifteen years), but she will take time out to visit her family, now residing in a distant Northern India village, to reflect on her life choices so far.

The forty-two-minute Chomo is packed wall-to-wall with stunning visuals, but it is the charismatic Chomo who truly lights up the film. Even with her clean-shaven head, she is a stunning presence, but her wisdom and sense of humor are what really make her beautiful. Arad just quietly observes the daily goings-on at the nunnery and follows Chomo as she journeys through the wildly cinematic mountain passes on her way home. Yet, this film never feels hushed and airless like some In Great Silence-style documentaries. Instead, viewers always have the sense that a whole lot of life is happening.

We always knew Tibetan Buddhism offered more wisdom than its CP oppressors, but here is proof it is also more progressive. There might not be full parity yet, but some significant glass ceilings have been broken, quietly and philosophically. On a less optimistic note, the film also reminds us in passing of the arrest and conviction (on mystery charges) of Lobsang Jamyang, a Tibetan monk who wrote tracts advocating freedom of expression under the name Lomik. Nevertheless, Chomo is a positive, refreshingly life-affirming film. Very highly recommended, Chomo screens this Saturday (10/21) with Pixelating Holiness, as part of this year’s Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.