This movie offered the expectation of a challenge (a notion reinforced by its title): a gauntlet thrown at the feet of the Chinese authorities, infamous for their heavy-handed approach to censorship. Just how do Beijing’s modern-day mandarins deal with a slew of underground noise terrorists (whose music would seem inherently seditious) seeking to undermine the foundations of their precarious post-Communist society? If Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Guns N’Roses have all fallen foul of the pen-pushers and policy makers, then what chance for Torturing Nurse? Unfortunately this film, directed by Guy-Marc Hinant and Dominique Lohlé, largely shies away from such confrontation, or even any concerted exploration of the issues surrounding state suppression of art.
Rather, Fuck You (if there was any actual defiance on view, I’m afraid it rather passed me by) expends its energies on observing various young noise vagabonds (themselves startlingly apolitical, pacified by what elder spokesman/poet Sun Meng Jin here describes as “the age of entertainment”) setting up gear and dishing out visceral doses of so-so din. In the end this documentary leaves the viewer feeling dissatisfied, abandoned without answers to search out their own meanings within its lengthy and chaotic sprawl.
