Staff Pick Premiere: “A Grand Canal” tells a 16mm tragedy

As filmmakers, we wield the unique ability to revise the world around us by scripting and reworking it into a version that feels most significant to ourselves. For Chinese/Canadian filmmaker Johnny Ma, his ambition to approach a personal subject led him back to China to reinterpret childhood memories and craft a narrative around them. The result is this week’s Staff Pick Premiere, “A Grand Canal.” It’s a film that feels like a timepiece only recently remembered. Filled with grit and grain from its 16mm format, it recalls the life of a late father through the narration of his son. The film explores family, honor, and ultimately, the power we all hold over memories through the craft of filmmaking. Enjoy the film below and read about its ideation through our interview with Johnny Ma.

Vimeo: “A Grand Canal” deals with the concept of revising memory. In it, you create a new ending for how a son remembers his father. In general, how do you think pictures and films influence our memory? What interested you in exploring this concept?

Johnny Ma: There is a great quote from Werner Herzog: “Facts do not constitute the truth. There is a deeper stratum.“ To me, it’s the same with our memory. It’s not necessarily just the facts that we remember, but a dream-like mirage of emotions. And filmmaking, with 24 images per second, is really the perfect tool to create or recreate these dreamlike worlds that can resemble our own memories.

I’ve always been a big fan of filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, and Werner Herzog, who can blur the lines between fact and fiction as well as playing with mediums.

But it was when I saw the documentary The Act of Killing a few months before we shot Grand Canal that it really had a major effect on me. It pushed me to look at cinema as a tool and a process to conjure up the past and potentially heal the present.

Where did the desire to create something from a child’s perspective as a tribute to his father come from?

The lead actor who didn’t have any previous acting experience was actually very hesitant to be in the film until I suggested to him that he should do it for his ten year old son. That was when he finally agreed. It really moved me that, for him, setting a good example for his son outweighed the fear of acting on camera for the first time. That’s really when I also began to think about the film as potentially a father and son story — that if the father was able to conjure up so much courage for his son, what sort of sacrifice could the son do for the father in return?

In terms of the revisionary ending, how has the film affected you after creating and screening it? Have the effects surprised you?

Until the end of the editing process, we were still discussing how we should end the film. We weren’t sure if we should keep the “ending” you are referring to or just end it as a normal narrative. Even after I held test screenings, the reactions were very divided. People either loved it or they thought that having such an ending would ruin the film.

I will never forget the first time we screened the finished film at Lincoln Center. I was so nervous that I chose to stand on the aisle so that I could watch the audience reaction, but also be able to make a quick escape if the film did not play well.

When the big “ending” finally came I remember feeling this wave of pure emotion just sweeping through the audience from the screen all the way to the back. It was really magical, and since then I have always tried to remember that as the goal to always be striving for.

I’m curious about the role of family in this film. Having lived in both China and North America, have you noticed a difference in dynamic?

If you think of any Ozu film, such as Late Spring or Tokyo Story, the concept of the good for the family almost always outweighs the individual’s interest. This is in contrast the US — but maybe I’m making a bit of a generalization here. With a lot of coming-of-age stories I see here in the West, there is a sort of belief that a child has to learn to fly from the nest or even rebel against the parents in order to become his/her own person. I’m very much divided on this issue — perhaps it is because of my two different backgrounds in both China and North America. And so the dilemma of family versus self has always found a way into my work.

You describe the film as “a Greek tragedy told in a 90’s pop song.” Where did you first find the Liu Huan song? Did you have a story and the song clicked? How did the song shape the film?

After we made the decision to cast our lead actor, his friends kept making fun of him, saying that the only reason we cast him was because he looked like the famous Chinese singer Liu Huan. Of course I had no idea who this Liu Huan was at the time, and it was only when I Googled his photo that I realized that my lead actor did look exactly like him.

So at first it was only a running joke in the film. But when I decided that it was going to be a father and son story, the song became much more important because it was the way to connect the father and the son in a more visceral way. I loved that at the beginning of the film maybe you think it’s kind of a cheesy pop song, but at the end when they hear it again, the song takes on a much deeper and more emotional meaning for the film.

The story paints the father in an honorable light as he stands up for his livelihood and his crew even in the face of dangerous consequences. Yet, the film ends with the narrator saying: “This is how your story should have ended…forever singing me that song.” What is it about hearing the song that is important?

I wanted the film to feel like the recreation of a childhood memory, and really it’s all about the way the son wanted to remember his father. So if the son chose to see his father as a hero, no matter what actually happened in reality, then he can make that happen in the film. For the son choosing to remember his father as the man who sang him to sleep, it was also his own way of saying goodbye, I think. And thus, the process of making the film, has allowed the son to finally heal.

You have gone on to make a feature film after “A Grand Canal.” How did this film shape you as a director? Anything that you learned in the process?

“Grand Canal” really confirmed the process in which I like to find my stories and make films. It made me realize that fear and failure are friends that can really be very helpful in pushing yourself to make something that could be much more interesting. So even now, I look for fear and failure as guidance rather than barriers.

What are you working on now?

Currently I am working on my second feature film, called Ten Thousand Happiness, which is also set in China. We hope to shoot by the end of this year.

Well, we can’t wait to see it. Read more of Johnny’s thoughts in this recent piece about his debut feature film. If you’d like to see more of the amazing films that have premiered on Vimeo, check out our past Staff Pick Premieres here.

Interested in premiering your short film as a Staff Pick Premiere? Please email premieres@vimeo.com for more information.

Originally published at Vimeo.com