Qiao Jianjia, also known as Qiao Jiaqi, is a young Chinese director and screenwriter. He is the director of Peony Screening and a member of the Chinese Art Anthropology Society. His representative works include “Floating Life in County Town” and “The First of the Year at the End of the Year”, both of which have been shortlisted in more than 20 domestic and international cinema exhibitions and have also been screened in Europe. His works have been permanently collected by the National Museum of China. In “Chinese Prostitutes”, he adopts the mockumentary medium in order to portray a story based on real events.
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The movie begins in a bedroom that seems to have been separated from the rest of the room with sheets, where a young girl is on her smartphone. Gangzi, a young man who seems to be her boyfriend, is also quite harsh towards her, despite the fact that he has just brought cold noodles for them to eat. She is a prostitute and he is her pimp, but also her boyfriend, as he pushes her to meet a “client” tonight, who is quite rich and perhaps can help them buy a place in the city where they can live together. The girl, however, reveals that she might be pregnant, something that does not seem to stop him from pushing her to go. It seems she has bought a DV camera and is recording what they are doing, although he is not exactly eager to be on camera.
She prepares to go meet the client, although she obviously does not feel well. From their discussion on the road, it becomes obvious that the girl wants to leave the place they are in, although she does not get any answers. Eventually, she goes to the hotel where the customer is waiting, while asking Gangzi to record her as she goes inside. A bit later, she comes out and he is waiting, but he does not take her to the hospital as promised. Instead, he pushes her to go to a barbecue. This time, though, she gets what she wants, while recording her visit to the hospital. When she gets out, he is nowhere to be found, and she returns on her own, shooting the whole thing. Later on, she meets with another prostitute.
Moving somewhere between home video and mockumentary, Qiao Jianjia presents the life of prostitutes in China in quite realistic fashion, completely stripped of any kind of exoticization of the profession. The girl who is the protagonist is just an ordinary individual, who happens to be trapped in a relationship and a profession she does not actually want. However, she keeps at it because, in her mind, they present her only hope of leaving a place she does not like.
The pregnancy and the attitude of the father, as much as her will to keep her baby, bring her face to face with a reality she does not want to truly deal with. As we hear her telling him that they could get proper jobs and raise the baby together, the futility of her wish comes to the fore, adding even more drama to the story. The way he goes about it is quite manipulative, adding even more to his portrait of despicability, although at times, he appears as a victim of his circumstances too.
The realism of what is portrayed on screen, the camera the girl uses, which gives a meta dimension to the work, and the acting, which frequently appears somewhere between documentary and performance, create a very appealing amalgam. That both actors perform well is definitely a plus here, while the combination of shaky camerawork and fixed sets continues the aforementioned approach, adding to the mockumentary style of the movie. The editing, with its abrupt cuts, also moves towards the same direction.
“Chinese Prostitutes” is a very interesting movie, both for the way it presents the everyday life of prostitutes, context-wise, and due to its rather intriguing cinematic approach.
