SKY LADDER: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang
Netflix
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya
Grade: B
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Written by: Kevin Macdonald
Cast: Cai Guo-Qiang, Ian Buruma, Cai Wen-You, Cai Wenhao, Ben Davis, Jeffrey Deitch, Phil Grucci, Thomas Krens, Tatsumi Masatoshi, Orville Schell, Jennifer Wen Ma, Hong Hong Wu
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 9/22/16
Opens: October 14, 2016
China looks a lot different now from what I saw when I visited the world’s most populated country in 1975. At that time Shanghai was a dowdy city, one that would be considered a backwater when compared to the glittering premier cities of Europe. Its “Fifth Avenue” equivalent was dark, even in the daytime when there was less pollution than now, its department store like a glorified Seven-Eleven. If you look at the city now, particularly as it is handsomely portrayed by Kevin Macdonald’s brief documentary, you might at first glance think that the skyline represents that of Chicago or New York. And one of the ways that Shanghai is much different in 2016 than it was in ’75 is found in the explosive fireworks of Cai Guo-Qiang’s art.
This is not the “art” that bores thousands of New York middle-schoolers who visit the Metropolitan as the one signature field trip of the year. Even the Metropolitan’s room with medieval armaments would not phase them. This is because everything there, as in most museums, is static, and in most museums the only subject in motion might be a black-and-white, pedantic cinema essay about the contents of a painting, a sculpture or a room. But Cai’s museum is as contemporary as they come, an outdoor extravaganza whose comparison to our Fourth of July fireworks would be insulting to him.
Cai Guo-Qiang, a tall, slender man who has resided in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and now New York, relates to us in his native Mandarin with English subtitles his view of Chinese politics along with his commentary on his form of art. Like all artists, especially outside the free world, he resents the compromises he must make with the authorities, who for one insipid reason or another, or perhaps just to show their authority, do not permit his art to take off in modes that displease them. Yet considering that his huge pallet is more gunpowder than canvas, you’d think that the Chinese, having discovered gunpowder while searching for a product that would give them immortality (like so many products in U.S. health food stores nowadays), would be proud of any art that uses the substance—which has been employed for good and evil for centuries.
The title of the doc, “Sky Ladder,” relates to the climactic project of Cai, one which concludes the film with a lavish display of pyrotechnics. For a long period, Cai dreamed of building a 500-meter-tall ladder with bamboo rungs held together by steel. This ladder, when lit up and lifted by a hot-air balloon, would be high enough to give the crowd the impression that it was leading to the heavens, and with a proper cloud formation, the sight would be awesome. This would be a treat for his 99-year-old grandmother, whom Cai reveres, and who he hoped to attend the display in her honor. Because of her illness, however she had to content herself with watching all on a tiny screen in a smartphone, just about the most reductive way to treat such a grand event. Ultimately the launch did take place in the wee hours of one morning and, after several cancellations because of bad weather or safety violations. Cai’s ultimate dream is realized.
“Sky Ladder” is the sort of doc that might well be in the running for cinematography awards, as DPs Robert D. Yeoman and Florian Zinke capture the excitement of blazes of glory. The stunning exhibits opened and closed the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but to the artist’s frustrations, his exhibit for a conference of world economic leaders—Obama and Putin in attendance—is considered a failure because of political restrictions and controversies.
The colorful, blazing displays are contrasted with some black-and-white archival films, most interestingly from the Cultural Revolution that lionized book-burning. When a teen, Cai actually joined the crowds, an example of the appeal of mob rule, in burning the possessions of his calligrapher/painter father who had been criticized for spending all his money on books. Cai, however, expressed his energy more productively in igniting gunpowder to canvas, producing chaos as though to criticize the destructive policies of his government while at the same time getting away with his satiric messages.
Even if you are indifferent to art in the sense of paintings and poetry, you might find sufficient entertainment value in this doc especially if you have been bored by conventional fireworks displays on New Year Eve.
Unrated. 76 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B
Acting – B
Technical – A-
Overall – B
