Through the city of Nanjing, China, runs the Yangtze River, and through that river runs many tragic ends. From the bridge which broods over it, an alarming number of suicides have occurred. There are actually a harrowing 290,000 suicides annually in China – a third of the global average. Angel of Nanjing is a documentary about Chen Si, a man who talks, counsels, and urges people away from the edge – of this bridge and life. The inquiries that compose the heart of this work are those that first compelled Chen SI to intervene in 2003. Why this bridge? Why these people? Why suicide? He evokes and embodies a Chinese notion: The prosperity of the nation is everyone’s responsibility.
This man is something of a superhero. In the first encounter shown, he’s wearing a bright red jacket with the words “Cherish Life Everyday” printed on its back. Donning sunglasses and a New York Yankees cap, he calls out to a man walking upon a railing that divides the walkway from traffic speeding by. It’s a vision into the cataclysm. Directors Jordan Horowitz and Frank Ferendo, along with their editor Alison Shurman, do a stunning job of putting the viewer in the moment. It’s tense and disturbing, yet with Chen Si as a guide, the situation feels calm and controlled. It’s a meeting that punctuates the film in various forms. This coaxing away from death’s edge runs a thread through the film. 290,000 suicides in one year is unwieldy for even the most sensitive of empaths; watching the fateful encounters between Chen Si and those he saves is an aesthetic of urgent compassion that reveals the data behind the reality.
But the film isn’t only about the societal issues of suicide, it’s also about Chen Si himself, this guardian of public life. In interactions he can be boisterous and excitable, brash and unyielding. His is a holy business, one of protecting and defending life at all costs. It’s easy to sense his hatred of death by his violence toward the notion of another slipping through its hands. He’s a logistician by day and angel by night. Any and all funds that go to helping these people are from his own pockets. It’s hard to deny his sense of duty to his fellow man, but he is very much one of these people. “It’s really not easy for a person to live in this world” is a truth that he mutters often, to victims but also seemingly to himself.
That is the most compelling function of this documentary: its blend of mission and mundanity. Angel of Nanjing is concerned with junctions and crossways. The filmmakers insert the action into the everyday. The camera is given full access to observe Chen Si at home with his family, speak to his wife as she prepares meals, and watch his daughter complete homework. It’s important that his inner life is shown. It forms a piece of quotidian psychology that yields much more about Chen Si than just his heroism. He’s wounded like the rest of us. Karaoke lifts his spirits and drink cleanses and distracts his heart. As the everyday is threaded with acts of salvation, the film takes on a grander contour.
The quality of passage and interruption the film abides by is best symbolized by the bridge that sits atop the Yangtze. It’s a passage into many realms: the lives of the distressed, Chen Si himself, the town of Nanjing, and even greater China itself. As the film follows its angel into his hometown – the catastrophically impoverished Suqian – the notion that this land is one imbued with sadness and heartache begins to emerge. Despite its status as a global superpower, much of China is still very much a developing country. The images shown seem to be from a dystopia far away, yet the cataclysm seems to have sunk into the hearts of the people.
It’s too bad that the film runs only 67 minutes because the greater reflections on the state of China’s (and the modern life’s) soul run ragged by film’s end. The film would have certainly benefitted from a tighter structure, one with a stronger thematic arc. The first half finds a rhythm between Chen Si’s life and work, his humanitarian duties intercut with life’s mundanities and the filmmakers’ psychological editing, yet this potent slice of life can’t find a rhythm later in the film in its allusions to bigger questions. I imagine there is a hard drive full of footage that could’ve yielded a fuller profile of the man and this land. We’ll never know.
Its flaws don’t detract for its immense compassion and vision though. Formally, it does good by not allowing mere talking heads into the frame. If someone talks, it’s a thread of a story that draws back into the greater narrative. For the Western mind, especially those of any religious background, it’s striking to witness this common goodness, uncompelled by divine affectation. It’s the common life Chen Si knows he shares with these downtrodden lives that drives him to act. Angel of Nanjing is a testament to the innate goodness of mankind. It’s a cleansing of the soul to remember why we are here and what it is to be a neighbor.