Interviews From The Short Century - Fanko Andrew 4 стр.

Despite Gong’s success in the West, she remains Chinese through and through.

After the day’s filming had ended, she agreed to meet me for an exclusive interview for Panorama .

Another big film for you and another old story, this time set in 1920s China . Why do you think that is?

I think it's because China has only recently opened its doors to the rest of the world. Ever since, Chinese cinema has enjoyed greater stylistic and cultural freedom. Censorship obviously played a defining role in Chinese cinema and the topics it covered for years, but there's also a more artistic explanation, if you can call it that: many Chinese directors think it’s a good idea to make films about events that pre-date the Cultural Revolution. It's a way of revisiting those events and that era. And maybe they think it's still a bit early for an international audience to see films about recent events, which are still too fresh and painful in people's memories.

You’re the most famous Chinese woman in the world. Do you feel the responsibility of being an ambassador?

The term ambassador scares me a little, if I’m honest. It’s too grand for me! Let's just say I feel that, through my films, I can be a bridge between Chinese and Western culture and history. I think it's fair to say that you guys don't know a great deal about modern China. So it gives me a great sense of pride to think that one of my films can help to educate the West about our people and the way we live our lives.

Sadly, the world's image of China in recent times is mass executions and orphanages with their “dying rooms”. Is that really what it's like?

China has plenty of problems, there's no getting away from that. Especially if you choose to only look at the negatives and ignore the positives. If you only see one side of a country, you're not seeing the complete picture. China is a massive country with over a billion people, so there are huge differences within it. You can’t just make sweeping judgements.

When did you accept the part of Ruyi in Temptress Moon ?

It was luck, really. Or maybe fate. They'd already started filming when a Taiwanese actress quit, so they offered me the part at the last minute. Did you know the Chinese critics are comparing Temptress Moon to Gone with the Wind ?

Are they? Why is that?

It’s not because of the story; it’s the casting. Chen auditioned dozens of actresses for my role, just like several actresses were cast aside before they chose Vivien Leigh to play Scarlett O'Hara. So they’d already begun filming when I joined the production. It's not been easy. I’m playing a spoiled little rich girl, which is nothing like my usual roles.

This is a golden age for Chinese cinema, isn't it? You've got directors like Chen and actors like you, but there's also people like John Woo and Ang Lee making it big in Hollywood .

I think it's because Chinese directors can combine exemplary cinematography with our culture's unique charm and style.

How did you get into acting?

Completely by chance. I loved to sing when I was younger. One day, my singing teacher said I should go with him to watch a TV show being filmed in Shandong. I remember the director was a woman. When she saw me, she decided I had to have a part, so she gave me a copy of the script. It was only a small part, but she decided I was a natural. She said to my mum: “Your daughter must become an actress.” She managed to convince her, and two months later I enrolled at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. I studied really hard, started to get small parts and the rest, as they say, is history!

You divide your time between Beijing and Hong Kong. The papers are full of your new relationship with a Hong Kong-based businessman, so do you think you will move there permanently?

I don’t think so. I like Hong Kong because it’s bustling and great for shopping. But I find it annoying. Beijing is different. People stop you in the street and talk to you about all sorts. In Hong Kong, it’s all about the money.

Are you fed up with the press sticking their noses into your private life?

I think it comes with the territory really. It’s mainly the Asian press that often prints unpleasant or made-up stories. The papers in the West have higher standards.

Is it also important for an actress to be beautiful in China?

Do you think I’m beautiful?

You’re seen as a sex symbol in the West .

That’s really nice, but I don't feel like a sex symbol. Maybe Chinese women have a certain appeal or charm because we are so different to Western women.

What are your plans for the future?

I want to get married and have children. I think family is a really important part of a woman’s life. If you don’t have a family, you can’t bring experience of everyday life into your work.

And do you have any more films lined up?

Not at the moment. I’m reading lots of scripts, but none have jumped out at me so far. I’m not going to accept any old part just for the sake of it.

Would you consider working with a Western director?

If they had a part that was suitable for me as a Chinese woman, sure...why not?

Is there an Italian director you’d like to work with?

Absolutely: Bernardo Bertolucci!

5

Íngrid Betancourt

The Pasionaria of the Andes

Dina, here is my article with box to follow. I hope you are well.

Today (Monday, February 11), I’m flying from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, where I will land tomorrow (February 12). You will still be able to reach me on my satellite phone, even while I’m navigating my away across Antarctica. I’ll be back in Argentina around February 24 and will then head to Bogotá, where I am scheduled to interview Ingrid Betancourt in early March.

Let me know if you'd be interested.

Catch up soon,

Marco

On an old computer, I found this email that I sent in early February 2002 to inform Dina Nascetti, one of my bosses at L’Espresso , of my movements. I had been in Japan to report on the tomb of Jesus

[1]

On the way out, I planned to report on the severe economic crisis that was gripping Argentina, and on the way back, I would go via Colombia to interview Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio, the Colombian politician and human rights activist. As it turned out, I arrived in Bogotá a couple of days early, which - for me at any rate - was a stroke of luck. I interviewed Ms Betancourt on February 22, and precisely twenty-four hours later she vanished into thin air while being driven from Florencia to San Vicente del Caguán. She had been kidnapped by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas and would be held hostage for more than six years.

If I’d arrived in Colombia just a day later, I never would have met her.

*****

She has shoulder-length brown hair and typically Colombian dark eyes. She wears an amber bracelet on her wrist and rarely cracks a smile.

But then, Íngrid Betancourt doesn’t have many reasons to smile. She may look younger than her forty years and have an enviable petite frame, but she is running for the presidency of Colombia, the most violent country in the world, where ten people are kidnapped and seventy people murdered every single day. Where war has raged for four decades, claiming thirty-seven thousand civilian lives in the last twelve years alone. A country that boasts the dubious honour of being the world’s leading producer of cocaine. A country from which over a million people have fled in the last three years.

And yet, it is not so long ago that this same woman sat before me today in a heavily guarded, clandestine apartment in downtown Bogotá, wearing a bulletproof vest and a nervous expression, was smiling serenely as she lay on a beach in the Seychelles, where her handsome and sophisticated French diplomat husband had been posted.

Precisely twenty-four hours after the interview, while being driven from Florencia to San Vicente del Caguán, on the front line of the battle between FARC rebels and government forces, Íngrid Betancourt disappears along with a French photographer and cameraman accompanying her to document an electoral campaign fraught with danger. Everything points to a kidnapping.

A dramatic event which paradoxically, even for a country as pitiless as Colombia, “suddenly increases the likelihood of her winning the election”, Gabriel Marcela, professor at national war college ESDEGUE, knowingly observes.

It was Ms Betancourt's own decision to come back to this hellish place in 1990, aged just thirty and in the prime of her life.

A former member of the Chamber of Representatives she has founded the Oxygen Green Party “in order to bring clean air into the corrupt world of Colombian politics”, she explains solemnly. The party’s slogan reads: “ Íngrid es oxigeno ” [Íngrid is oxygen]. And the campaign poster shows the woman herself with an anti-smog mask and surrounded by coloured balloons. The one hundred and sixty thousand votes she received when she was elected Senator four years ago were the most for any candidate in a Senate election in Colombia. But it could be argued that she wouldn't still be in the headlines without her recently published autobiography, the Italian title of which leaves us in no doubt as to her current frame of mind: They’ll Probably Kill Me Tomorrow .

I put it to her that this might be a shade melodramatic.

“ The French edition was titled La rage au coeur [With Rage in My Heart],” she responds defensively. “But the Italian publishers wanted a stronger title, so that's what we went for. And actually, that’s really how I’m feeling. It's what goes through my head first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I don’t think it’s particularly melodramatic. The prospect of being murdered tomorrow is a very real one for millions of this people in this country.”

The French newspapers are portraying her as some kind of latter-day saint: Paris Match called her “The woman in the firing line”, Libération “A heroine”, Le Figaro “The Pasionaria of the Andes”. Le Nouvel Observateur wrote: “if Simon Bolívar, the liberator of Latin America, could have chosen an heir, he would have chosen her”.

Whereas the Colombian press have had a laugh at her expense. Semana , the country’s leading weekly news magazine, lampooned her on the cover as Joan of Arc, complete with horse, armour and lance. The truth is, her book is far more measured and dry than its title and reviews would suggest. Ms Betancourt makes no attempt to hide her privileged background. As a young girl, she would ride horses every week at a farm owned by friends.

But she is full of ideas and has no difficulty putting them into words. “Conservative estimates suggest that in 1998, Colombia's biggest guerrilla group, FARC, received annual funding of about three hundred million dollars, most of which came from drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. Today, that figure is close to half a billion dollars, and its membership has increased from fifteen thousand to twenty-one thousand. This situation,” she continues, “is putting the Colombian government at a huge disadvantage in their fight against the rebels. In order to secure a decisive victory, we believe that the government would have to deploy three or four highly trained soldiers for each FARC guerrilla, whereas the most they can currently send out is two. And all this requires an economic outlay that my country simply can’t afford. Since 1990, the cost of suppressing the rebels has increased nearly ten fold. At the beginning, it was costing one per cent of GDP but now it is more than two per cent - one billion US dollars...it's astronomical.”

So is she a hot-headed fanatic, like her enemies claim, or simply a woman who wants to do something for her country, which is how she sees it? The political elite in Bogotá are trying to ignore her candidature, but they are gradually starting to fear her. Omar, her chief bodyguard, pipes up: “In this country, you can pay for honesty with your life.” Ms Betancourt interjects quickly: “I’m not afraid of dying. Fear keeps me on my toes.”

Fighting corruption is at the forefront of her campaign, closely followed by the civil war. “The State should have no qualms about negotiating with the left-wing guerrillas,” she concludes, “unlike the right-wing paramilitary group the AUC, which is responsible for most of the murders that take place in Colombia.”

So how does she live with fear and threats on a daily basis?

“ I think, in a funny kind of way, you get used to it. Not that you should have to. The other day,” she concludes calmly, “I received a photo of a dismembered child in the post. Underneath it was written: ‘Senator, we have already hired a hit man to take care of you. We’re reserving special treatment for your son…’”.

6

Aung San Suu Kyi

Winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize

Free from fear

Following considerable pressure from the United Nations, Aung San Suu Kyi was released on 6 May 2002. It made headlines around the world, but her freedom was short-lived. On 30 May 2003, a group of soldiers opened fire on her convoy, killing many of her supporters. She survived thanks to the quick reflexes of her driver Ko Kyaw Soe Lin, but she was again put under house arrest.

The day after her release in May 2002, I used some of my contacts within the Burmese opposition to arrange an interview with Ms Suu Kyi vie email.

*****

At ten o’clock yesterday morning, the guards stationed outside the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), quietly returned to their barracks. And so it was, in a surprise move, that the military junta in Rangoon lifted the restrictions it had placed on the movement of the pacifist leader known simply in her homeland as “The Lady”, a woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and had been under house arrest since 20 July 1989.

So ever since ten o’clock yesterday morning, after a period of nearly thirteen years, Aung San Suu Kyi has been free to leave her lakeside house, speak to whomever she wants, be politically active and see her children.

But is this really the end of the period of isolation for the Burmese Pasionaria? The exiled opposition still do not believe the grand declarations from the military junta, which said it was freeing Ms Suu Kyi unconditionally.

They would rather wait and see. And pray. Indeed, since yesterday, the Burmese diaspora have already held prayer demonstrations in Buddhist temples in Thailand and other parts of eastern Asia.

As for The Lady herself, she too has wasted little time. She was immediately driven to the headquarters of the NLD, which had won a landslide victory (nearly sixty per cent of the vote) in the 1990 elections while the governing National Unity Party (NUP) secured just ten of the four hundred and eighty-five seats. The military government annulled the results, outlawed the opposition (imprisoning or exiling its leaders) and violently suppressed any protests. Parliament was never convened.

The Italian edition of your autobiography is called Libera dalla paura [Free From Fear]. Is that how you feel now?

Yes, for the first time in more than a decade, I feel free. Physically free. Free to go about my business and think, above all. As I explain in my book, however, I’ve felt “free from fear” for many years. Ever since I realised that the tyranny here in my country could harm humiliate or even kill us, but they couldn't scare us anymore.