There are just seven Canadian movies nominated in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscar out of 47 submissions made since 1971 with Les Invasions barbares of 2003 being the only winner. The last times that Canada was nominated for this category were for a number of French-Canadian movies from the early years of the current decade such as Incendies by Denis Villeneuve in 2010, Monsieur Lazhar by Philippe Falardeau in 2022 and Rebelle by Kim Nguyen in 2012. As a matter of fact, Canada’s entries have been predominantly dominated by French-Canadian cinema accounting for 44 out of those forty-seven. This year, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Jason Loftus’ Eternal Spring is seeking to change that.
Eternal Spring is a Mandarin-language documentary film combining live action and animated sequences aimed at telling us about the true story behind China’s state TV signal hijack which took place on March 2002 by a group of Falun Gong religious activists located Changchun, its capital city. For instance, Falun Gong meditation exercises similar to yoga and tai chi are spiritual practices aligned to Buddhist traditions among its followers. It originated from China in early-90s becoming increasingly popular across China during late-twentieth century alone thereby exceeding even numbers registered under Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Consequently CCP banned Falun Gong vilifying it as an evil cult and suppressing information about it/its believers at all costs. To address human rights violations perpetrated by the government after hacking into state television signal Daxiong drew upon comic art to depict how he was arrested and abused before taken some distance away before he finally arrived to North America. After that policemen stormed suspected activists homes subjects them to several tortures including violence so as they could confess their crimes. Daxiong himself fled and suffered along with other people who were imprisoned or met other dark destinies that are even worse than death.
In short, Eternal Spring is a palpable history, shareable and above all personalized. Thus most of the historical films such as Titanic or Dunkirk are usually shown through actors, costumes, sets and storylines which are merely re-enactments of what really happened. However, Loftus documentary while still engaging enough employs Daxiong’s art to show how cruel CCP could be towards its innocent protesters. This approach not only enables Eternal Spring to recall those moments from Changchun’s recent past but also allows us to watch them unfold in the present as the characters of this film draw their own sketches while describing their memories on camera. In simple terms, users can perceive Eternal Spring as some kind of collective memory because it was made by actual participants who were at that given point in time.
While watching Eternal Spring, people might recognize Daxiong—either by name or drawing—due to his acclaim as a comic book artist and editor for comics like Justice League of America and Star Wars Adventures: Boba Fett and the Ship of Fear. Indeed there are instances where Loftus builds on artist’s background here lending this Falun Gong activists with a sense superhuman fashion whereby they engage themselves in high-stake burglary operation that can easily lead to death.
Loftus’ directorial lens had actually turned to the Chinese government before Eternal Spring. Ask No Questions, his first documentary, which he co-directed with Eric Pedicelli, was aimed at debunking a theory posited by Culture Mix that the five people who were on fire and were purported to have committed suicide in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in fact had it staged for them by China as a way of branding Falun Gong – of which Loftus is a follower – as a dangerous sect. Ask No Questions appears to have some spiritual connections with Eternal Spring but while it could be seen as more or less another person’s investigation of the same issue and was not necessarily ground-breaking, this time around it offers quite an intimate picture.
This is because in Eternal Spring Loftus switches gears and lets Daxiong take over to try highlighting what those who went through the hijackings, police raids, escapees and incarcerations have to say. The outcome is not just another archaeological venture pretending to be a film but calls upon anyone who is outside there to step forth into it only with their eyes and then later see if they can learn anything about how power abuse happens from watching this video -and even further so; one thing can follow after another happens for example when the people coerced into silence or irrelevance finally make themselves heard.
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