CRI听力: French Films in China

In Chinese cinemas, audience can see a lot of box office hits from Hollywood, while films from other countries are rarely seen. Famous for its rich culture, France is actively promoting its cinema to the outside world. In recent years, various French film festivals and screening activities have been held in China for the purpose of attracting a wider audience. But how do Chinese view French films?

Many people may have the impression that French films are mostly artistic with profound themes, beautiful pictures and romantic styles. Alexandre Muller, managing director of TV5monde which is a TV station promoting French culture globally, talks about the characteristics of French films.

"The French movie in general is very different from the other movies of the world. The way they are produced and financed is very different. They are not made to make box office hits, but they are made to give a message, a message of peace and love. Different messages are conveyed in the way a movie is written and the way it's shot. It's made to be more cultural than commercial."

As a typical French movie, "The Hedgehog" has received favorable recognition when it was screened in Europe last year. In the French Film Panorama held last month, the film was also screened in China.

Zhuang Ruixian, a university student majoring in French, expresses her feeling about the movie.

"It is obviously not a commercial film, and it may be more welcomed by certain groups of people. For myself, I would prefer to buy tickets to watch action films or sci-fi films in the theater."

Like Zhuang Ruixian, most Chinese audiences are more attracted to Hollywood blockbusters with fascinating special effect and intense plot progressions. Meanwhile, the much slower and more detailed story-telling methods in French art films are sometimes considered difficult to understand or not exciting enough.

Luc Besson may be one of the best known French film makers to Chinese people. His works such as "The Fifth Element" and "Leon" are very popular among audiences. However, his films are actually not considered to be typical French movies but with more Hollywood elements. This may explain why his works are more popular in China. Zhong Beibei is a movie fan in Beijing, she shares her understanding about why audiences like Hollywood style films.

"The so-called blockbusters are often with better visual effects and high technologies than just story-telling ones. At the present price level, I pay certain amount of money to buy a ticket, I would like to see more special effects and more exciting ones. But for feature films that only tell stories or art films, I would rather just buy DVDs and watch them at home."

Contrary to the common understanding that French films are mostly art films, France does have a diverse collection of various works. Christine Pernin, a member of Unifrance which is the organization promoting French cinema worldwide, explains.

"We have some fantastic short films, period movies with costumes and beautiful dresses, thriller, romantic movies, animations. In France, we do wonderful animations, not only for children, and we also have live action movies for children, because we feel in France that children can watch animation and they can also watch real movies."

Currently, China only introduces some 20 foreign films each year to screen in cinemas, most are American but about five or six French films are publicly shown in commercial theaters. Due to the language barrier, Chinese audiences are in fact limited in their access to most of French films. Zhong Beibei agrees.

"Because I don't speak French, I can only watch those French films with subtitles, and there are far less choices. Sometimes, if you cannot see better ones, you can only accept the less good ones and develop negative taste."

The taste for good movies needs to be cultivated. France has been working hard in recent years to find ways to effectively promote French culture and cinema. A number of various film events such as the French Film Panorama and Francophonie Film Festival are held every year in China. These events are held in hopes that as more and more diverse films can be seen, Chinese audience will learn more about French culture and a wider variety of films will be shown in the Chinese cinema.