Film Pingpong !exclusive! -

One evening in late autumn, the landlord knocked on Chen’s door. The building was being sold. He had sixty days. Chen nodded, said nothing, closed the door. He sat on his bed and looked at the film canister. He was seventy-one. He had no car, no savings, no friend who would take a heavy metal box of obsolete media. He could throw it away. He could leave it for the demolition crew. But the thought made his chest tighten in a way that was not quite physical.

Chen had been the sound recordist on the shoot. It was his first job out of film school, a school that had since been demolished to make way for a shopping mall. He remembered the weight of the Nagra III on his shoulder, the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat in the gymnasium, the particular thwock of a celluloid ball against a blade of rubber and wood. He had captured that sound. It was, he sometimes thought, the only perfect thing he had ever made. film pingpong

He walked down the mountain in the dark. The next morning, he called his son. “I don’t need money,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you about the sound.” His son listened for once, or pretended to. When Chen finished, there was a long pause. Then his son said, “That’s actually kind of deep, Dad.” One evening in late autumn, the landlord knocked

Chen sat in the watchtower until dusk. He remembered the thwock of the ball. He remembered Lin’s voice in his headphones, saying, “Hold, hold, hold.” He remembered the girl Li Jie, after the final scene, asking him if the film would make her famous. He had lied and said yes. Chen nodded, said nothing, closed the door

The rest of the crew had scattered decades ago. The director, a fierce woman named Lin, had emigrated to Canada and died of cancer in 2009. The cinematographer, Old Fang, had gone blind from diabetes. The young players in the film—pimply, earnest, terrible at interviews—were now grandparents. Chen kept in touch with none of them. He kept only the reel.