Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case

Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case

In 2012, Ai Weiwei was released from an 81-day detention in solitary confinement. In “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” the documentary about his life directed by Alison Klayman, he has just returned home. Worn out and usually expansive, he politely declines to speak with reporters and photographers gathered outside his house. He is on probation and has been ordered not to talk to the media.

“Live your life,” Ai says with resignation before closing the front door. “Everybody should live your life.”

And that’s where “Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case” begins.

It picks up directly after that moment when Mr. Ai tries under house arrest and constant surveillance to live his life and still share his voice. Ms. Klayman’s movie was broad; it surveyed Mr. Ai’s work and influence in general terms. Directed by Andreas Johnsen of Denmark, this one is a snapshot.

It is lower-key because he is lower key this time around; fire starts it up all over again in his gut, though, and there are parts of “The Fake Case” at which you sit forward in your seat with incredulity or excitement or finally tension as you watch him remember who he is.

The title of the film refers to Mr. Ai’s company Fake Ltd., but also speaks to the charges against him: tax evasion totaling $2.5 million by Chinese authorities who were looking for any excuse to silence a man known for speaking out against them at every turn including daily blog posts uploaded with photos and video pointing out injustices wherever he saw them (like our dear departed leader Roger Ebert, Mr. Ai knows Twitter can be used not only as a communication tool but as a global rallying mechanism for people who believe there should be freedom of expression).

“One of the most touching moments in the film ,” she whispers, “was when I said that our family is always living in a state of delusion and Chinese society is like an ocean wave.”

Now Ai has Ai Lao his own young son to think about. The toddler from “Never Sorry,” whom he had with a woman who wasn’t his wife, is now a fixture in his life, helping him in the garden at home or playing amid the 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds Ai scattered across the floor of London’s Tate Modern for an installation. Life and art have merged as one for him in a new way for a new generation.

“If I don’t show my voice, if I don’t act as I always believe, then I’m dead already,” Ai matter of factly tells a foreign journalist during an interview.

Johnsen chronicles with great intimacy this push-pull quality of Ai’s daily existence the man he truly is now compared with the man he wants to be again. He’s still defiant enough to tail the men who’ve been assigned to tail him (how often do you see a car chase in a documentary?), but he also suffers from nightmares and terrible sleep, nodding off on the patio while sitting there talking to someone in broad daylight. He seems constantly lost even while engaging in activities he loves and yet that fire clearly still burns within.

“Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case” evokes much of same spirit as “This Is Not a Film,” Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s inventive and deeply moving 2012 documentary shot under house arrest in his high-rise apartment. They’re both about making art under constraint and how far creative people will go to be heard at any cost.

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