One second by Zhang Yimou is a film about a man who escapes from a labor camp and travels across the desert to watch a film showing his daughter, from whom he has been separated for years.
But it is also a film about cinema, about the use of films as a collective event and as the result of an artisanal process that requires skill and precision.
It is no coincidence that the projectionist, the “Mr. Film “, is revered by the community as a kind of god, the only one capable of making projections possible, expected as special occasions and with great trepidation by everyone even if it is a poor quality propaganda newsreel. It is the magic of the screen that counts and the magic that cinema accomplishes by manipulating time.
And a little magic is given by Mr. Film by extending the time of viewing a fragment that lasts a single ruthless second on the film: this is the time dictated by history that equally ruthlessly separates destinies and imposes distances.
