The Square (1994)

Interesting facts

The Square is a 1994 Chinese documentary film directed by Duan Jinchuan and Zhang Yuan. It is Zhang's first true documentary film, after two documentary-influenced fiction films: Mama and Beijing Bastards.

Production history

The concept of a documentary film about Tiananmen Square shortly after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 began while Zhang Yuan was still a student at the Beijing Film Academy, and while he was producing and filming his debut, Mama, in the late 1980s.

In an interview given several years later, Zhang noted that he saw Tiananmen Square as "one giant stage" which pushed him to "pick up my camera and record some of those more interesting people and attempt to capture the feeling of the square." When he finally followed through on his plan, police would often come up and question his purpose, to which he would reply that he was part of a CCTV film crew.

Zhang filmed the most "mundane" things for a period of twenty-four hours, in the process capturing both ceremony (the flag raising and lowering carried out every day by PLA soldiers) and every-day moments. Indeed, the film is devoid of any dialogue, music, or narration outside of incidental moments captured by the "CCTV" camera.

The film itself was made in defiance of government disapproval, as Zhang had recently been blacklisted by the government for his submission of films to international film festivals without permission. Despite this impediment, Zhang's documentary would be screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival, where it would win a Jury Prize.

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