Documentary directed by Alison Klayman. In English and Chinese with English subtitles. (R, 91 mins.)
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei spent a productive decade in New York, noticed by almost no one, before returning to his native Beijing in 1993. Since then, as
recounted in Alison Klayman's brisk, clear-eyed documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," he has risen steadily to international prominence, through intensifying
antiauthoritarian and social-media activism as well as through his art.
"Mostly I make decisions," Ai tells Klayman, explaining why he lets assistants fabricate his sculpture.
Using her own footage, excerpts from Ai's documentaries and broadcast interviews, Klayman acquaints us with the man behind the decisions, an extraordinarily
down-to-earth yet cosmopolitan figure, full of mischief, courage and defiance.
"Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" ends with Ai singing a little song - minus subtitles - in Mandarin. Those few moments - and a final Twitter message: "Never retreat,
retweet" - offset an otherwise bleak ending. The film shows Ai intimidated into virtual silence immediately after his release from nearly three months'
imprisonment.
Klayman has already shown us Ai challenging the authorities on various fronts, most grippingly in a confrontation with the Chengdu police officer who had
given him a potentially fatal head injury.
But "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" leaves us seeing him as an optimist, as he defines one: someone "exhilarated by life, still curious, who still thinks there is
possibility."
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