HONG BU JING

A band of artists stages events, screenings and roadside exhibits in out-of-the-way towns and villages of rural western China, amid a months-long itinerary that retraces the Red Armys historic Long March. Tagging along with this brood on their quixotic art-mission is poet/filmmaker Du Peihua who pursues her own incisive observations or gossamer broodings. At the outset, Dus voice alludes to a Tang dynasty poet (her namesake) in a rhetorical challenge of personal experience against the claims of received wisdom. Whether viewed as novelistic documentary or cinema diary, A Red Backdrop feels peculiarly introspective. Wherever Du goes, she runs into odd signs of the ubiquitous quest for self-definition. Along her way, Du listens to farmers and artists, talks with friends and passersby. She takes in history, society, esthetics and seems to pine after a vision of primordial freedom amid this flux. (David Raphael Israel)