China, I Love You

On 8 August 1966, Chairman Mao launched the anti-bourgeois Cultural Revolution which was intended to lead the Chinese proletariat towards its ultimate liberation. “And then...” nothing proceeded as planned. In this caustic essay on the Great Helmsman’s last bluff, which continues to be celebrated in a contemporary China devoured by unbridled consumerism, Liu Beilin updates the “discrepant” editing technique so dear to the lettrist cinema of Isidore Isou.