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One of the fabulous perks of working in a government industry is all the comp tickets to various performances, openings, and galas that get sent to our office on pretty much a daily basis. Of course the seasoned veterans very rarely have any interest in going, but we fresh-faced interns snap up comps like m&ms (or skittles in my case, since I don’t like m&ms). Last night we experienced our first comped event, the Shanghai International Film Festival Opening Ceremony. Notified a mere day before, I was ambivalent about going, but was told by my supervisor that it would be fun, so I decided to go. The invitation e-mail stated dress code as “dark suit,” so I donned a cocktail dress for the evening. We really had no advance information about the event at all, so we were really surprised on arrival to find huge crowds around the Shanghai theater, police barricades, barrages of reporters, and a Hollywood style Red Carpet entrance. Hmm, this might be a bigger deal than we thought. After fighting through the throngs of spectators to get to the police barricades, and then presenting my ticket to get into the roped off area, I found myself adjacent to another roped off red carpet area, where Chinese celebrities in ball gowns and tuxedos were sashaying in front of reporters and photographers. I decided that I would have a better view of them if I went in to the mezzanine first and watched them come in one by one to sit. Now, I am relatively knowledgeable about Chinese celebrities compared to the average American, but by no means an expert. However, I did recognize a few big names, including Wang Lihong (Chinese pop star sensation, who was in an atrocious outfit, but still looked cute), Chen Kaige (Director of Farewell My Concubine), Jet Li (everyone knows who he is) and John Woo (Director of famous Hollywood films like Mission Impossible). Also in attendance were a lot of important governmental head honchos, including both the Mayor and Vice-Mayor of Shanghai -pretty big deals.

My fellow intern Brittany and I had fun doing Joan Rivers-style commentary on the various outfits worn by the Chinese celebrities. Chinese actresses must have some sort of rule that they all must wear copious amounts of glitter at any red carpet event. There were sparkles galore. I also think it is tacky for anyone to answer a cellphone while walking down a red carpet, which is what a few wives of foreign film directors did. Shame on them. Also interesting was the diverse levels of dressiness within the audience. The stars of course were decked out in their finest couture, but within the audience of us regular people, there was everything from evening wear, to cocktail dresses, to business casual, to jeans and t-shirts! If this were a Hollywood premier, those in jeans (unless they are super expensive designer jeans) would have been denied entrance. It was an odd juxtaposition.

Also interesting was the level of government involvement. Of course all culture-related activity in China is controlled by the Ministry of Culture, and hence government presence is unsurprising. Still, wouldn’t it be odd if at the Oscars the Mayor of LA made introductory remarks about how the film industry advances the United States’ development, progress, and international standing? And wouldn’t it be odd if protocol dictated that government bureaucrats give rambling speeches at the beginning, and be the ones to physically hand over the awards to the winners? I would think so.

Speaking of this last arrangement and its oddness, a hilarious moment did occur. The first person being honored that night was a French film-maker named Luc Besson. His name was announced, and he promptly mounted stage left just as a group of ballerinas came swirling in artistically and struck a pose with the award (a small statue) held aloft on stage right. Monsieur Besson, unsure of what to do, jokingly mimics the ballerinas’ movement and prances over to them on stage right with the intention of taking the still-held-aloft award. He reaches toward the ballerina to accept the award, but she doesn’t let go of it to let him take it. At that point, one of the government bureaucrats had been announced and was on stage left. Without a further glance at Mr. Besson, the ballerinas run past Besson and hand over the award to the government bureaucrat, leaving Besson standing on stage right. The Chinese emcees try to cover this awkward moment by complimenting Besson’s dancing prowess, and eventually the confused director makes it back to stage left to accept his award, which is handed to him by the bureaucrat. Way too complicated if you ask me, but it did make for some hilarity!

Next came a series of clips of all the films premiering this coming week. Some of them did look quite intriguing, including the Chinese film “Deep in the Clouds,” and the Iranian film “Pay Back” Perhaps more tickets will become available to check them out!

Unfortunately, the closing performance just devolved into weirdness. Showcasing performances from a “variety of cultures,” the audience was subjected to a bizarre series of two minute dances from Africa, Hungary, and India, and then closed with random foreigners lip-syncing to a Chinese song, including an African rapper that looked like he time-warped from the 1980s, and three other racially-indeterminate females (two were white, one was black, who knows who they were). It wouldn’t have been so terribly awful if it weren’t so obvious that they were lip-syncing. Ah well, it’s China! We left the theater happy that we got to see some celebrities, and an idea of some cool movies worth watching.