Documenting demolition: the spectral space in Cong Feng’s Stratum 1

This article examines Cong Feng’s enigmatic Stratum 1: The visitors (Diceng 1: Laike, 2012), a work that has been underexplored within academic discussions of the Chinese independent documentary film movement. The article examines the film’s cryptic esthetic decisions with regards to spatiality, drawing comparisons with past influential works of ruin-gazing from the reform era, namely Wang Bing’s West of the Tracks (Tiexi qu, 2002). This article contends Cong Feng’s employment of actors-cum-narrators establishes a critique of xianchang esthetics, problematizing traditional understandings of the term, typically translated as ‘shooting on-location.’ Moreover, it contends Cong’s turn towards the phantasmatic places the filmmaker within a tradition of Chinese filmmaking diverging from xianchang filmmakers, situating Stratum 1 within a wider lineage of spectral films that blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction, like Yang Lina’s Longing for the Rain (Chunmeng, 2013). Along the way, it bridges the gap between debates in Chinese independent documentary and Anglophone documentary theory more generally.