Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

The documentary I chose for this week is, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Ai Weiwei is a very famous artist and activist, often combining the two through performance art. The documentary takes place over a period of two years, during which the filmmaker documented Ai Weiwei’s artistic processes, interviewed his artists, and captured a lot of Weiwei’s conflicts with the Chinese government. I would classify this documentary as an observational one, with some overlapping themes from expository and performative.  It is observational because there is minimum intervention, we don’t really interact with the filmmaker, and it aims to establish intimacy with Ai Weiwei and his “co-artists.” The expository and performative aspects come into play in the content. This film very much shows the control and suppressive nature of the Chinese government and exposing that element is certainly the intent of the filmmaker. In terms of the performative part, a lot of what the filmmaker captures is performance art and the process of creating it. Perhaps that’s too literal of an interpretation of the film mode, I just thought I should bring attention to it!