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In making the film “Eternal Spring,” Jason Loftus and Daxiong surely knew they were paying homage, albeit at a daunting generational distance, to “Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914), the first animated movie to include live action photography. If Mr. Loftus, a documentary filmmaker with a foot in the video game industry, didn’t know about “Gertie,” then Daxiong must have schooled him.
Born Guo Jingxiong, Daxiong is the nom de plume for a cartoonist who’s put his considerable talents to limning pop culture stalwarts like Luke Skywalker, Superman, and … the Chinese Communist Party. Given his reputation, his skills, and his many awards, Daxiong, it is safe to bet, is acquainted with the pioneering cartoonist Winslow McKay.
In “Gertie the Dinosaur,” McKay famously brought to life a dinosaur from the pages of a drawing pad. The first thing we see in “Eternal Spring” is a bird’s-eye view of Daxiong at work on his drawing table. The surface is covered with markers, character studies, and a line rendering of a cityscape. As the camera descends, a caption identifies the place and time of the scene: Changchun, China, March 2002. Daxiong’s pen-and-ink drawing then starts to morph, glide, and soar into its cinematic doppelganger.
Lest you think this bit of digital magic leads to a magical world, perish the thought. As the transformation of mediums takes place, Daxiong’s voiceover narration hints at grim notions — about conflict, death, imprisonment, and how “lives and fates were changed” — whereupon we are breathlessly swept into Changchun’s grittier precincts, in which an animated version of Daxiong watches a thuggish cadre of policemen chase after some winsomely delineated perps.
“In China,” Daxiong continues, “they’d kill a thousand people just to catch the right one.” In this case, “they” refers to the Chinese government and the “right one” is Falun Gong, a form of spiritual endeavor founded by Li Hongzhi in the early 1990s.
New Yorkers should be familiar with Falun Gong: Based in Suffolk County, the group publishes the Epoch Times and its dance troupe, Shen Yun, has performed at Lincoln Center. Members are typically seen outside major subway stations advocating on behalf of their cause.
Falun Gong has been the target of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party. Dubbing it “an evil cult,” the CCP has lumped the group together with the Uighurs, the Tibetans, pro-independence Taiwanese, and anyone who looks kindly on democratic reform of China, dubbing the lot of them “the five poisons.” Daxiong is an adherent of Falun Gong, and Mr. Loftus, who has an abiding interest in Eastern philosophies, is a sympathetic collaborator.
“Eternal Spring” is an incredibly fluid mix of genres: In addition to live action and animation, there is documentary reportage, sleek mise en scènes straight out of a videogame, and the Byzantine machinations of a heist movie. Among the cast we find characters with to-the-point aliases like “The Mastermind,” “The Electrician,” and, memorably, “Big Truck.”
The picture’s centerpiece is the 2002 hijacking of state TV by a group of Falun Gong activists. After having been banned and vilified by the CCP, a select team of adherents interrupted official programming in order to broadcast a documentary on the beneficent nature of their organization. The incident was international news: “Eternal Spring” includes a snippet of Peter Jennings reporting on the incident. China’s official Xinhua news agency was significantly nonplussed: “Why do some Falun Gong die-hards dare to blemish modern civilization in such a barefaced manner?”
“Eternal Spring” — the title is ironically deployed, being the English translation for the non-idyllic confines of Changchun — details the fates of those involved with the hijacking and they aren’t, to put it mildly, happy. Among those who survived or were freed from prison is Jin Xuezhe, aka “Mr. White,” who lives at Seoul. Daxiong — who was not involved in the hijacking and, in fact, has mixed feelings about its efficacy — is now ensconced in New York City. He served time because the CCP found his art objectionable.
Mr. Loftus has related their stories effectively with means that seem, at first glance, counterintuitive. Then again, “Maus” and “Persepolis” were perceived similarly at first. All of which goes to iterate that the conventions of comic books can be yoked to serious artistic purposes, and so it is with “Eternal Spring.”
(c) 2022 Mario Naves
This article was originally published in the October 20, 2022 edition of The New York Sun.
Too Much Art 