This is what China doesn't want us to see

Ai Weiwei during the presentation of 'Coronation' in Berlin in September.FILIP SINGER / EFE

• Confinement in Wuhan as told by Ai Weiwei

Can you imagine a bag of flour that has been caked and that you have to dump into a solid and standardized container?

It's not that difficult: they'll shake it unceremoniously enough, pound it on the surface so that it loses its shape, and end up pouring and squeezing it into place.

I do not want to make their breakfast bitter, but that action so eager is what Ai Weiwei teaches us when she sneaks her cameras at the counter for the delivery of the ashes of victims of the covid before some contrite relatives who, if they cry, are ordered to be strong.

Two exemplary officials manage to crush the ashes until they fit in the urn, wrap it in a red cloth, hand it over and pass the cloth to proceed to the next one.

Another follows a sobbing woman through the park to remind her to set an example for others.

There is no compassion for the Chinese of Wuhan who are not allowed to collect the remains of their dead alone, but only through their "work units" and who are not consoled by the 30% discount on funeral expenses that they They offer in compensation.

It is one of the realities that the Chinese artist exiled in England teaches us in

a powerful film that, surprisingly, because it is fine, has not managed to sneak into major festivals like Toronto, New York or Venice or on platforms like Netflix.

The film flows between the silence or the terrible ambient sound, it overwhelms by allowing us to peek through a keyhole into that universe as immense as it is closed that is setting the tone for the world.

Seeing it not only scares China, so efficient, so dedicated, so deployed to confine, to stop contagions and also control information, but above all it scares the West, we scare ourselves, that we are so afraid of it that we do not know how to welcome and channel this material recorded thanks to brave collaborators who were sending it to Ai Weiwei.

One of the workers posted to Wuhan to build an urgent hospital asks his nephew by video call: "Do you miss me?"

He lives in his car in a subway, he is desperate.

"When you come I will have a spray and I will disinfect you", the little one replies affectionately.

There will be no disinfection possible for this modern dystopia that China has made a reality and to which we fold without reacting.