Man in Black

Presented at Cannes as part of special screenings, Man in Black has its international premiere at New Horizons. This hour-long intimate documentary one-voice opera, a spine-chilling solo performance, combines singing, dancing, and storytelling, invoking the tradition of xiqu theater while filling the convention with subversive content. Shot in just three days in a Parisian theater, Wang Bing's film focuses on the life of Wang Xilin, one of China's most important contemporary composers, living in exile in Germany. Completely naked, the man reconstructs his life before the camera. He sings, he narrates, and with his torture-scarred body, choreographs the 20th century that brought Communist Party rule, the Cultural Revolution, fear, beatings, censorship, mass purges, self-criticism sessions, camps, suffering, hunger, and death to China. Man in Black, accompanied by symphonic pieces composed by the artist himself, offers a testimonial by expressing his trauma and anger through words, songs, and screams, while his tormented and defenseless body astonishingly (therapeutically?) performs in madness.