Word: walls
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...tourist is prepared for the pyramids or the Parthenon. But the Great Wall of China? More than 2,480 mortised miles of esplanade, built over the bodies of 300,000 serfs and some of the world's ruggedest mountain terrain, to no ultimate military purpose. On a windswept turret of the wall completed in 214 B.C., in a 500-year-old pavilion of the Forbidden City or Soochow's leaning Tiger Hill Pagoda (it has a 3¾° tilt), the visitor is not so much awed as numbed. Who were-and are - the people who could construct...
...marbles from the Parthenon. Rebuilt hi 1888 by the dotty Dowager Empress Tz'u Hsi, diverting funds allotted for naval construction, the imperial plaisanterie occupies 700 acres and attracts huge numbers of Chinese rubbernecks. And then there are the Ming Tombs and, a few hours away, the Great Wall. Otherwise the city is nondescript and marred by Stalinoid architecture...
...antique stores, though, the young comrades behind the counter are apt to be woefully ignorant of the objets d'art they are selling. In Wusih, a customer reasonably well versed in Chinese asks a salesgirl the exact meaning of the calligraphy on a 200-year-old wall scroll. Her hesitant reply: "Aim high to build our country," which is purest Mao. The scroll actually reproduces a philosophical poem by the Ch'ing dynasty's Tsu Shao-tseng...
Ship docks on Shanghai's Whang-poo River. Busy first day sightseeing. Second day, to Peking for manic 14-hour slog that takes in Great Wall, Forbidden City, sumptuous banquet. Third, more Shanghai. Shopping, sights and concert. Fourth, to Wusih and on to Soochow for the night and another crammed rubbernecking day. Sixth, Shanghai. Seventh, sail for Canton. Eighth, ninth and tenth days at sea: slide shows, lectures, no chopsticks. Eleventh, arrive Canton. Temples, museums, other sights. Twelfth, by plane to beautiful Kweilin, two days. Fourteenth, back to Canton: another temple, shopping, concert. Fifteenth day, to Foshan for temples...
...visual quality of the film is lush - sets and actors perhaps too lovingly dressed in period trappings - but Huppert gives astringency to the scenes. The camera lingers on her plump, spoiled, intelligent face, and it is possible to see the wall that she has built between herself and the world. Behind the wall is Violette; what she may be is only partly guessable. Her crime is solved, but the mystery remains...