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In Guangzhou, journalist Sophia Xueqin Huang methodically sweeps under the bed and behind the bookshelves of her apartment — not for dust, but recording devices. In Shenzhen, Zijuan Chen and her young son cradle a cardboard cut-out of the boy’s imprisoned father, while in Beijing, a human rights lawyer named Wang Quanzhang is barricaded in his home by neighbours.
These arresting snapshots are captured in Total Trust, a terrific, frequently terrifying documentary about Chinese surveillance and censorship. Following the paranoid, claustrophobic daily life of the aforementioned — all deemed or related to “subversive” individuals — the film brings home the extent to which China uses invasive technologies, social initiatives and media propaganda to supervise and subjugate its people. While a film crew shadowing people already being monitored might sound like just another form of observation, the aim here is to give these suffocated citizens a chance to voice their experiences and turn the camera back on the 700mn CCTVs watching the country’s population.
Jialing Zhang — who directs an on-location, anonymised crew from the US — ensures her subjects are more than case studies, through her careful, compassionate approach. But these intimate portraits are combined with a wider exploration of a culture of surveillance and vigilantism. We hear for instance about the rise of neighbour watch schemes — whereby designated “special residents” are tracked and misdemeanours reported by officious locals — and points-based social credit systems which reward “good” behaviour (not unlike the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive”). “You don’t need the government to censor anymore, the people self-censor,” says Huang, who nevertheless reveals that she had her biometric data taken and a camera installed directly outside her window.
A postscript informs us that she was arrested after the making of the film. Elsewhere, Quanzhang, who was held for three years in an undisclosed detention centre after refusing to “confess” to treacherous activity, provides an insight into how the state treats its political prisoners in jail and how it effectively keeps them in captivity on release.
His testimonies are shocking but there’s also an underlying tragedy to the scenes that focus on the children of those who have been detained. A shot of one boy screaming at a surveillance camera is a heartbreaking image of lost innocence — and a stirring act of defiance.
★★★★☆
On BBC4 from February 20 at 10pm and on BBC iPlayer from February 21
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