Almost Wild, But Not Quite: The Indexical and the Fantastic Animal Other in China-Co-Produced (Eco)Cinema

This chapter studies two recent Chinese co-productions, Born in China (2016) and Wolf Totem (2015), which foreground the construction of the indexical and the fantastic wildlife in the very process of renegotiating the parameters of Chinese cinema. Navigating multilayered boundaries between ethnicities, species, and media industries, I analyse how the two films construct and address the tension between and intertwinement of the indexical and the fantastic wildlife. I describe the films’ de-anthropocentric impulse, articulated through technological mediation, as almost wild, but not quite. More specifically, I argue that Wolf Totem features ‘cultivated wildness’, while Born in China depends on ‘intercepted wildness’. Both bespeak fantastic ecocinematic consciousness without carrying it to full fruition.