THERE ARE NO BAD REASONS TO BOYCOTT THE GAMES:

Modern Slavery in Rural China (S. JAMES SNYDER, March 11, 2008, NY Sun)

Of all the recent movies to tackle the terrifying issue of human trafficking (including the crude and manipulative "Trade" and the eerily calm and cynical "Holly"), none has evoked the anxiety, despair, or sheer outrage to be found in "Blind Mountain," which opens tomorrow at Film Forum. The film's explosive climax drew spontaneous emotional outbursts from audiences during its premiere at last year's Cannes Film Festival, and it came as no surprise when reports surfaced that Chinese officials forced the director, Li Yang, to make several last-minute changes to the film, which, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, paints a less-than-encouraging portrait of the nation.

Set in the early 1990s, "Blind Mountain" unfolds so quickly and with such brutal assuredness that we never question the authenticity of the predicament into which young Bai Xuemei (Huang Lu) is tossed. Xuemei is a bright and penniless college graduate in need of a job. Unable to find work in the city, Xuemei is ecstatic when a young woman around her age tells her about a possible position selling medical supplies to citizens living in the country's northern mountain region.

As the two women set out with an older man in a business suit, there's something euphoric in Xuemei's eyes, the palpable excitement of a young woman on an adventure to a paycheck. Better still, her colleagues tell her that these rural laborers seem eager to make a purchase. Xuemei laughs and takes a sip of water. She awakes hours later on a bed, clutching her stomach. In mere seconds she has surmised the betrayal: Her co-workers are nowhere to be found, her money and I.D. have been stolen, and a gangly and grimy middle-age local named Degui (Yang Youan) informs her that she isn't going anywhere — he's paid $7,000 for her to be his wife.

It's a shocking turn of events to be sure, but what's most unsettling about "Blind Mountain" is not that a man would want to buy himself a young sex slave, but that his family and his community would be so complicit in the crime.

Evil regimes succeed, in part, by making everyone complicit in their crimes, as we will be if we help them celebrate.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 11, 2008 7:25 AM