You can see ‘Crying Woman’ because you don’t live in China

This sounds like a pretty good idea for a movie, right?: A woman who’s down on her luck and desperate for money discovers that there’s a market for an unusual quality she has—enthusiastic crying. Yes, in China, there’s a need for serious mourners at funerals, and soon our heroine is earning her keep and paying her debts by attending funeral after funeral, weeping over people she never knew.

This is the story in Crying Woman (2002), which will be presented by ArtPower! in UCSD’s Price Theater at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, with director Liu Bingjian in attendance. It’s worth noting that although you can see Crying Woman on Thursday, one place it’s never been seen is in the country where it was made; Crying Woman has been banned in China.

“Since China has a very complicated film-rating system, every film must be suitable for all,” Rebecca Webb, the curator of ArtPower! Film, tells CityBeat via email. “When the material under review addresses topics and images in ways that the governmental committee finds to be out of sync with the cultural ideals that they want their citizens to believe and support, this committee has the power to completely shut down public consumption of said film.”

Crying Woman is the second of three banned films presented this season by Webb and UCSD professor Paul Pickowicz, who’ll lead a post-screening discussion with Bingjian.

“Films are the mirror of a society,” Webb says. “This series of films from China helps us understand a culture very different from ours which has restricted any freedom of expression to masquerade as public order.”