Journey of authors

Director Wang Shengzhi says there was little to direct in his newly released five-part documentary.

A coproduction of mainland channel Straits TV and streaming platform Youku, the documentary on well-known Chinese authors debuted on April 16.

In Wenxue De Richang ("everyday life of literature"), an author is featured in each episode, with other guests－a literary critic, an artist and a writer－also speaking, while Wang is seen observing their conversations over two or three days.

"Each author has a different personality," Wang tells China Daily via phone. "But they have one thing in common－they all instinctively distance themselves from the camera because they don't want to 'act'."

He continues, "It took more time to persuade them to join the project than the shooting per se. Nevertheless, hearing their in-depth dialogues was very enjoyable."

Though Wang has a master's degree in Chinese literature, he says he's not competent enough to vein a fair dialogue with the authors. That's why he invited critics, artists and writers as guests in the documentary, whose understanding of literature and the spiritual world is roughly on par with the authors'.

"It enabled them to share their brilliant minds," Wang explains.

One episode is on Ma Yuan, 67, a novelist who rose to fame in the 1980s for his creative narrative skills. Ma left Shanghai in 2008 after being diagnosed with cancer and has lived in a small village of the Hani ethnic group in Yunnan province since.

The documentary shows painter Wu Xiaohai visiting Ma in his self-designed villa, where studies are named after eminent writers such as Victor Hugo and Leo Tolstoy.

"Today's people really show themselves on social media. They have gone far from the nature of life," Ma says in the episode. "I'm not a hermit ... I'm only living in a way that is like the essence of literature, unadorned but poetic."

A similar situation is noticed in the episode on Alai, 61, an author of Tibetan ethnicity who's based in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and is best known for his novel, Dust Settled Down. He does not use WeChat and had to be persuaded by Wang to appear in the documentary.

Alai gets emotional on camera recalling his experience of the devastating magnitude-8.0 earthquake in Sichuan in 2008 when speaking to literary critic Xie Youshun.

For Alai, it was a bitter yet inspirational time to consider the matter of life and death on a deeper level. One night after the earthquake, he was resting in his car, listening to Mozart's Requiem, and was shocked to suddenly find the car surrounded by people. No one spoke a word.

"I thought they would smash the window (for robbery)," Alai says in the episode."But everyone was just listening. When the music stopped, they left quietly... That's the feeling I would like to include in my writing."

It took him a decade to begin writing his novel on the catastrophe, Yun Zhong Ji ("diary in the clouds"), which is narrated from a Tibetan monk's perspective to reveal not only pain but also awe of nature.

"In spite of huge loss, you have nothing to hate, because it's brought on by nature," Alai says in the documentary.

As to the challenges faced by Chinese writers, Alai says his work was once turned down by some publishers who said his writing was elegant but too good to sell well in the market.

"People always want to buy the best things in the material world," Alai says. "However, in the spiritual world, why is something 'too' good to sell?"

Though Wang had expected the authors to voice their views on modern literature in the documentary, their interviews went on to bigger issues such as the meaning of life and analyses of their own personalities. Wang did not intervene.

"Compared with texts, visuals seem too shallow to fully display what they wanted to express through literature," Wang says.

"I don't expect to reflect how great writers they are via the documentary. If you want to know, you have to read their books... I can only offer a glimpse of their lives."

Wang was best known for his acclaimed documentary, Breakfast in China, which is close to people's everyday lives. Consequently, speaking of authors' everyday lives, Wang once thought it was probably better to shoot scenes of them visiting teahouses or markets.

"But I found their everyday lives often have nothing to do with that," Wang says, adding that Alai, for example, spends a lot of his time at home－reading, meditating and smoking.

"We set the scenes where they (the authors) felt comfortable."

Novelist Ma Chia-hui, who lives in Hong Kong, chose to talk about life and death while walking in a graveyard in another episode.

And,"feeling uncomfortable" can be inspirational.

In one episode, author Mai Jia, 55, whose spy-genre novels, including Decoded and The Message, have been translated into more than 30 languages, talks with nostalgia in the house where he spent his childhood. Some people are seen playing mahjong. The author suddenly begins to introspect: "Training in literature has made me too sensitive to find joy in everyday entertainment. I am too sensitive and can easily go to extremes."

Mai, who was initially tense during recording, fully opens his heart later. Wang says it is the documentary's most highlighted moment.

On Douban, a major film and TV review website, Wenxue De Richang has received 8.6 points out of 10.

"I'm surprised to find many people in their early 20s love it, though we originally thought it may cater to academics," Wang says. "We often thought they (young people) prefer short clips with quick rhythm. However, who doesn't have a sleepless night when hearing raindrops outside and falling into nostalgia? It reminds us not to simply stereotype young generations."

In modern society, not everyone has the time to read books, he adds.

"People still consider reading to be a beautiful thing. We hope our documentary awakens this feeling."

Meng Yan, producer of the documentary, says literature is not the threshold for the audience.

"The authors talk about hometowns, generation gaps, juvenile issues, life and death, and many themes concerning all of us," she says.

"Audiences will be led to notice some subtle emotions in life, which can be easily neglected ... Books are only teasers to introduce us to the authors' worlds. We can think of our own pain points and explore what is a really interesting life."

Meng says the COVID-19 pandemic has also given the audience more space to resonate with and get inspired by the production.

"Only when faced with diseases or other emergencies do people begin to consider how their lives can be rearranged and what the next steps should be."

While the documentary may trigger people's metaphysical thinking, one thing is still very down-to-earth: Though the authors' works and glorious resumes do not frequently appear in the documentary except when they are invited to read some chapters from their own books, some of their novels have been out of stock online since the documentary was released, the director says.

It took Wang two years to collect the footage in spite of the relatively short duration of shooting.

"I have to take a long time getting out of one author's world and looking for the right mood for the next one," he says.

He has followed 10 authors for the project, so there will be a season two, with five more episodes.