Though plenty of movies have been made either focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic in a literal way, and even more movies had been converted into limited cast chamber dramas as a result of it (say, KIMI [2022] or A Knock at the Cabin [2023]), very few films understood the strange immediate aftermath of the lockdowns to be an interesting subject itself. And, where most of the United States felt this reintegration process (returning to work, vague masking policies, a tempering of vaccination politics) to be gradual, a change from a locked-down life to one outside one’s apartment building was drastic and subject to immediate reversal. This is especially true for Wuhan, which was thought to be the center of the virus itself and therefore watched over with special attention by its government, keen on being seen as controlling any further spread of the virus. Luo Li’s Air Base captures an odd place at an odd time: Wuhan, China, in 2023, when the lockdowns were finally considered over. Li’s documentary about his hometown shows streets becoming steadily more crowded by shoppers and exercise groups, but the film focuses on the more awkward parts of his friends and family’s reacquaintance with a normal urban life.
Air Base is something of a pun in Mandarin, as “air” can also mean “emptiness” and “air force” can mean one who takes nothing home in fisherman lingo. So, featured at the center of this doc is the Air Base, a pond where the fish never bite, but determined locals try anyway. Here, several men talk to each other about their experience during the lockdowns — one man dreams that the clouds around the mountains have turned to waves, another complains about his now bedridden mother worrying about her job from decades ago in the early hours of the morning. By some miracle, they catch a fish or two. Meanwhile, a young woman walks around the parks of Wuhan, collecting “sighs” into their microphone for a nondescript project. Most of the people who talk to her deny their sighs for either spiritual (”a sigh is too pessimistic”) or health-related reasons; they probably have as much luck as the anglers. Finally, during Wuhan’s early night hours, a man on a small overpass pretends he’s a traffic conductor, waving the cars underneath him to continue driving and stopping completely safe foot traffic until he determines they can pass. These characters sometimes meet each other, but they mostly wander the streets of a city that’s slowly peeking out its head after a long hibernation.
While director Luo Li is interested enough in these people’s conversations to allow them to play out in full, most of Air Base’s runtime consists of shots of Wuhan’s streets, the shopping centers, the vaguely European part of town, the small bridges that light up from multicolor LEDs at night, the Air Base pond, and the light reflecting from the pond in the trees. It’s never quite busy, but it’s a city busy enough to encourage strange interactions, which lighten the mood in between the more serious conversations. In fact, plenty of moments play out like a lighter version of How to with John Wilson — one of the anglers sits beside the road and lights up an entire box of matches one by one; then, a few moments later, the camera lingers on a single broom traveling in the same place on an escalator which nobody, not even a policeman, dares to move. Li is keen to capture these minor eccentricities to which everyone simply acclimates in this gradually re-socialized world. Though some people object to the pretend crossing guard, others are willing to give in to this bit of performance art and politely wait for his go. Then, mirroring stories about suicide are told by the banks of the pond. Everyone’s opening up.
While Li never attempts much beyond this structure, Air Base is not a movie that asks for profound statements or big moments. It’s a casual city symphony that cares much more about a benignly cursed pond than the hustle and bustle of its city officials or recovering industry. Here, there are no jackhammers or honking horns, but a pleasing melody of the pond’s guitar player or the Mandarin karaoke cover of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” fill the void. In the final two-minute shot, a skater at a local park tries again and again to land a simple trick down a step as one of the film’s eccentrics walks in circles on his phone in the background. The young woman records more excuses than sighs, the anglers let their two fish go, and this skater keeps falling even as the dusk creeps in. But in 2023’s Wuhan, there’s a beauty in trying with others at your side or in your periphery — there’s beauty in trying at all.
Published as part of Cinéma du Réel 2025.
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