Norway has presented China with a restored 1920s silent Chinese film, thawing relations - at least briefly - between the two nations after hostility following the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
Norway awarded the coveted prize to imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, causing resentment from the Chinese government and state media. China accused the country of interfering in internal affairs and glorifying a criminal, cutting all diplomatic ties between the nations.
However, two representatives of the National Library of Norway presented The Cave of the Spider Spirit to the China Film Archive on Tuesday, marking a rare point of contact between the sides. The 1927 film, produced by the Shanghai Film Company, was found in Norwegian archives in 1999 and is based on a chapter of the Chinese folktale Journey to the West. It is unclear how the film ended up in the archives. The film premiered in Oslo in January 1929 with subtitles in both languages, containing multiple mistakes.
Film archivist Tina Anckarman said, "the translator took great liberties and put in his own comments in parenthesis when he thought that was appropriate". "There are also sequences in the film where the Chinese text is mistakenly inserted upside down or reversed," she added.
The film's restoration has reportedly kept the same mistakes and commentary. The movie was the first Chinese production to feature a scene with an underwater camera.
The presentation of the film comes after China announced its intentions to raise its imported film quota, to allow more foreign arthouse films to be shown in the country.
[Image via Flickr]
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