People’s Republic of Desire film review: Yes, Black Mirror is already here
AUSTIN, Texas-If you've ever asked yourself how long a Black Mirror episode might take to turn into real life, the new documentary People's Republic of Desire has an answer: roughly four years.
Really, the best way to describe this feature-length look at Chinese Internet streamers is to point to the British series' first-season episode "Fifteen Million Merits," which aired in 2011 and starred Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya. The episode imagined a future, Internet-driven popularity contest that tore people's lives apart. According to the filmmakers behind People's Republic of Desire, that episode's level of life-bending insanity had already unfolded in China by 2015, fueled largely by the millions-strong video-sharing site YY. And the results aren't pretty.
The result, with its millimeter-range focus on major YY personalities, deservedly won this week's South by Southwest jury prize for best documentary. Though it leaves some questions and topics unexplored, People's Republic of Desire still delivers a fascinating, character-driven story that Internet fans in the West should pay particular heed to-especially as live-streaming services develop and mature on our side of the Pacific.
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