Heading into this, I had no idea who Ai Weiwei is. Listen, I’m into film, television, and pop culture. I’m telling you, I kill it from my living room at Pop Culture Jeopardy. the problem is I can’t enter as a solo act. However, I am loosely familiar with Tura dot. In my free time, which actually is a misnomer because my free time goes to this stuff, and the other thing is how I get money, but I work with musicians. Classically trained musicians, music theatre performers, choirs, musicals, etc. I work in the performing arts.

So as a documentary, I appreciated this for telling me more about who Ai Weiwei was. he’s making his opera debut, directing Puccini’s Turandot and drawing correlations to the modern age in his staging. it is pretty simple, and runs only about 79 minutes. As a blind critic, I recognized it was English and Italian, but I suspected the Italian was mostly the opera itself, which it was. I believe only one person who was interviewed actually spoke in Italian. Everyone else spoke in English, a king this a more accessible documentary for audiences even without audio description. Blind or not, the lyrics in Turandot aren’t going to be translated in AD. People have been going to the Opera for hundreds of years, enjoying opera in languages they don’t speak. That is the culture. come to appreciate the art form, the terrific vocalists, the orchestral arrangements, etc.

While I did like the film, in the grand scope, it is very surface level. It really is far more of a documentary about Ai Weiwei than it is Turandot, and with a runtime so short, you would think we could have spent more time with Turandot. We sort of do, but there’s a catch, and it shows its hand. I believe the director is more a fan of Ai Weiwei than opera. Much like the people who sit at home and clap at America’s Got Talent when the newest “opera singer” appears to sing Nessun Dorma, the director is equally captivated by one of the most well-known, and overdone arias in the entirety of opera.

A director with a deeper understanding of Turandot would have balanced the film more, showcasing the totality of the work. The target demographic for this film is split between fans of Ai Weiwei or documentaries in general, and those who will see Turandot, and want to know more. those people, who have seen live stagings of operas, perhaps even at the Met, or at least when the Met pipes them to their local theatre, are a bit more aware that Nesun dorma is overdone. It’s like doing a John Lennon documentary and just playing Imagine, or a Leonard cohen film and only doing hallelujah. Fans probably want more of the story, not just that one big hit. If you want to make a documentary about the cultural impact of Nessun Dorma, there’s probably material there. but, if you want to make something about Turandot, your audience likely would prefer more deeper cuts, and not just the thing everyone sings on reality shows.

But, I still learned stuff, and it was a breezy watch. It was so breezy, they had time to focus on the opera a bit more. but it is hard to be mad at a short runtime.

For an artist as groundbreaking as Ai Weiwei, the overplayed Nessun dorma seems to clash with the desire to be original, but the film itself is still a fine glance at an artist unafraid to push the limits.

fresh: 6.8/10