In Wayne Wang’s 1982 independent classic Chan is Missing, two characters are searching for the titular Chan, who acts throughout the film as a sort of cypher, representing various ideas about Chinese Americans (and Asian Americans more broadly). Chan never appears in the flesh–the aforementioned pair, Jo and Steve (Wood Moy and Marc Hayashi, respectively), spend the narrative meeting various contacts who all have different impressions of him. One of these, a Filipino man played by non-actor Presco Tabios in his only film role, gives a monologue in which he draws some metaphysical conclusions from Chan’s evasiveness. He concludes by referencing another friend’s tendency to gaze into puddles, and suggests that the amateur detectives might find Chan himself in such a place. The subtext is evident–Chan is a reflection of the observer, and in his absence, both the audience and the characters in the film project their own assumptions and ideas onto him.
In the years since its release, Chan is Missing has gained a reputation as an important film, in its context as a micro-budget indie darling, an immigrant story, and even a noir film. But arguably it is discussed most often as a landmark film of Asian American cinema, being referred to as the first Asian American theatrical feature ever made in the United States. Obviously, all “firsts” are notable in their own way, but Chan is Missing is special even beyond this. With its poignantly absent central figure and its metafictional and philosophical dialogue, it uses its story to raise questions about identity, nationality, belonging, and most importantly of all, the very concept of representation.
It is nice, perhaps even necessary, to be reassured that we are not alone. We know already, before any image appears on a screen, that there are others like us, who look like us or talk like us, who eat the same foods and listen to the same music and know the same old stories we heard as kids, passed down from generation to generation. New stories retell and contain the old ones. We are struck by recognition, and our hearts race with excitement or settle into a nostalgic calm. We are held tightly by our communion with familiar strangers, through sound and image. We are seen.
Here in the United States, outside academic circles, talk of representation in media is largely confined to superficial assessments of the historically marginalized taking up positions of power or fantastical roles traditionally occupied by cisgender heterosexual white men. A Latinx president, an Indian American superhero. Even when taken more seriously, we are largely relegated to checked boxes–representation as inclusion or, more cynically, assimilation. What most glaringly appears to be missing here is representation as an avenue for empathy. In other words, rather than seeing ourselves occupying positions of power or disappearing into crowds of ordinary, upstanding citizens, can we not see ourselves in images of those worse off, without the same level of access? Can we see ourselves reflected in who we might be under other circumstances?
The idea of storytelling as a means of building empathy is far older than cinema, likely older even than the written word; and that idea within cinema is older than more modern talks of the value of representation (specifically in the sense of demographic groups being reflected in the media and cultural output of the places in which they reside). Where these ideas have been synthesized is more complicated. We can take as an example the 1963 Iranian documentary The House Is Black. The only film directed by the poet Forugh Farrokhzad, it depicts, somewhat expressionistically but with minimal vocal explication, the abject yet undeniably valuable life within a leper colony. Farrokhzad and her crew do not dictate the terms under which the audience must view these people. They are undeniably victims of their disease, and their suffering is shown without varnish, but they are also shown to be eager students and to appreciate the wonders of creation, however simply those might manifest within their meager residence. They suffer, but they are not defined by their suffering. This depiction allows us to see the lepers as human, to identify aspects of ourselves in them which connect us across time and space. At the time of the film’s release, Iranians would have gained a better understanding of members of their own society who were otherwise invisible.
In contrast, we might look at Ali Abbasi’s 2022 film Holy Spider. Abbasi shares with Farrokhzad an Iranian heritage, though he is of a younger generation and belongs to the diaspora, residing in Denmark when the film was conceived and produced. The film itself is essentially fiction, though based on the very real “Spider Killer” murders which took place in the Iranian city of Mashhad in the early 2000s. In Holy Spider, each of the killer’s victims, all of whom are (and were, in reality) female sex workers, is given a small amount of screen time to develop their characters before they are murdered. Though the actors portraying them do admirable work infusing them with humanity and making them relatable in different ways, they are not the primary entrypoint for identification in the film. That role is instead given to a woman journalist, Arezoo Rahimi. Unlike the killer’s targets, she is not portrayed as a victim. She is competent, confident, and, as far as both Iranian and Western societies are concerned, carries out a respectful profession. She is also a wholly fictional character. Why Abbasi would invent this character is not hard to determine–it is far easier and more comfortable for audiences to experience this story of violence and deprivation through the detached perspective of someone who can solve the problem, rather than succumb to it. More importantly, it is far harder to sell a movie in which the most fleshed out women are sex workers living in deep poverty.
While Farrokhzad and Abbasi exist along the same continuum of national origin, and share some aspects of their identity in common, their differing contexts and experiences no doubt influenced the way they chose to depict their homeland and the more underrepresented people who belong to it. The House Is Black is still lauded as a masterpiece to this day, despite the fact that leprosy is considered a relic of the past for most people viewing it, and Iranian society has changed greatly since the time it was made. Though the specific lives depicted in that film may not be directly relatable to anyone alive today, the underlying emotional truths expressed through shining a light on some of the most vulnerable and neglected people imaginable still resonate. We don’t need to have been there in order to understand–the point of the film is to engender some understanding by itself.
Hu Bo, though he spent the entirety of his life in China, has some things in common with Forugh Farrokhzad. Both were primarily literary figures, one a poet and the other a novelist. They each directed a single film, which they are arguably better known for internationally. And both died tragically young–Farrokhzad at 32 under mysterious circumstances, though nominally in a car accident, and Hu at 29 by suicide. Hu’s aforementioned one and only film was released in 2018, a few months after his death. Titled An Elephant Sitting Still, it depicts the intersecting lives of several people living in Shijiazhuang, in Northern China. These individuals include high school students, retired veterans, and career criminals–-spanning a range of generations and lived experiences, they are all united in their disaffection and deprivation. Their lives are not glamorous, nor are they particularly exciting save the occasional act of banal violence. At nearly four hours long, the film’s languid pace reflects the truth of life for arguably billions of people.
The film’s title comes from a story told in its first scene, which reflects a desire by the characters to escape their circumstances. It tells of an elephant in a circus in the Inner Mongolian city of Manzhouli which is always sitting still, never moving regardless of how much it is provoked. The appeal of this sight is a little unclear–not necessarily because it is inherently valueless, but because the enigmatic elephant, whose reasons for behaving abnormally are not elucidated, can become whatever its observer wants it to be.
An Elephant Sitting Still, at least in the eyes of an American viewer, might act as a sort of complement to something like Chan is Missing. That is to say, whether out of ignorance or curiosity, one might look at the former film and try to glean some distinct truth about contemporary China; or, slightly more poetically, conclude that each story disconfirms the assumptions made by the other’s characters, while confirming the other’s openness to myriad possibility. Chan remains missing, and the elephant remains elusive, if not to the characters then to the audience.
What all of these films have in common is a depiction of struggle without a guaranteed end, without easy answers, and without any sort of glossy edge that rarely rises above the ordinary. That is not to suggest that these films are dull, not at all; rather, they present the unvarnished lives of their characters as the filmmakers see them. They are attempts to engender empathy without excising complication or mundanity. The object of representation does not need to rise up out of the gutter in order to be worthy of a lens. The figure in front of the camera need not be capable of superhuman feats or teeming with saintly virtue.
As of this writing, the genocide in Gaza–or, depending on one’s perspective, its most recent escalation–has been ongoing for nearly a year. Though enacted by Israel, it is without a doubt a humanitarian tragedy engendered and prolonged by the United States. Perhaps unique in history thus far, its many atrocities have been documented and broadcast largely by its victims (and, to a lesser extent, its perpetrators). The amount of video evidence of some of the worst crimes imaginable is far greater than even the many horrible images to come out of the so-called War on Terror, itself the most widely televised conflict in history. At no other point have people been so regularly exposed to images of abjection and suffering taking place across the world and in locations to which they do not otherwise have access. We are all of us perfectly placed at the intersection of radicalization and desensitization, in no small part thanks to the moving image.
Babak Jalali’s Fremont (2023) is one of the most recent additions to the canon of Asian American independent cinema, part of the lineage allegedly originated by Chan Is Missing. It tells the story of Donya, an Afghan refugee living in the titular California city. Donya was forced to flee the country of her birth partly as a result of a war carried out by her current country of residence, a reality experienced by many migrants. She is portrayed charmingly by first-time actress Anaita Wali Zada as rather deadpan and inscrutable, a refreshing change of pace from the histrionic caricatures and cartoonishly inspiring paragons who often fill similar roles in American films. Donya’s trauma is depicted realistically, but it doesn’t define her. She is not some patriot in love with the U.S. for taking her in, nor does she hate Americans for what befell her homeland. She is simply trying to get by, as most in her shoes would be. Much of the film deals with her becoming accustomed to talk therapy.
Fremont shows us images and archetypes we are used to–the emotionally scarred refugee from a war-torn land, the immigrant chafing against bizarre norms in her new country of residence, even the awkward mumblecore protagonist trying to find love–but in melding these things and presenting them as if they are ordinary, it builds empathy through familiarity. Donya is a far more relatable and recognizable character than, say, one of the innumerable racist caricatures in Crash (2004), perhaps the ultimate assimilationist narrative which distorts the concept of representation to the point of self-parody. Just as Chan Is Missing recognized its characters as human beings unlike the Charlie Chans of yore, Fremont knows that refugees are just people.
All of us are products of circumstance. Part of this circumstance is the media we are exposed to, and by this logic our exposure to characters who look and speak like us and narratives reflective of our own experiences plays a not insignificant role in our self-perception. For some, this leads to a desire for increased positive depiction, for idealized selves, imaginings of potential and illusions of power. As of this writing, Americans are standing at the precipice of electing the first woman of color to the highest office in the country, an aspirational dream made manifest. At the same time, the United States is engaged in acts of aggression and exploitation all over the globe, from Pacific Islands to our own borders, including in many nations where we ourselves have roots. It is natural that we might look at once-marginalized figures ascendant and feel a kind of vicarious pride. It is equally appropriate to look at the footage of brutalized and starving masses in Gaza, the lepers in The House Is Black, or Hu Bo’s disaffected wretches and ask: have you seen yourself?
