Tang Ping (Wang Bo Lun) is an independent painter in a Chinese artist’s village. His refusal to compromise and make commercial art sees him struggle to provide for his wife (Yuan Li) and daughter. His rebellious ways repeatedly put him in trouble with the police. While a documentary filmmaker (Kristy Shan) tries to record his artistic process, the repercussions of his actions threaten his livelihood, his position among his artist peers, and his safety.

Funded via Hong Kong but set in mainland China, Kwok Wai Lun’s Out of Frame is a bold attempt to explore the frustrations of making fine art in an environment rife with government pressure and both external and self-censorship. It is the latter that seems most potent: once individual artists are too frightened of government sanctions and sentences to take any risks, policing free speech ceases to become an issue. It holds particular resonance for Hong Kong-distributed features like this: were Out of Frame produced just four years later, it is likely it would never have been released. As it stands, it remains curiously obscure.

When viewers first encounter Tang, he is protesting the abrupt demolition of his artist’s village by local authorities. While he relocates to another village, it is much more commercially minded and conciliatory: he chafes against his new colleagues, finding them more interested in pleasing art dealers and rich customers than in expressing themselves creatively. When his defiance results in him being excluded from a group exhibition, and his own solo show being cancelled, he shifts from painting to provocative performance art to make his frustration known. His new acts include sitting in near-boiling water, compulsively vomiting while keeping a coin in his mouth, and drawing on tiles with his own blood.

Wang Bo Lun serves a forceful, compelling performance as Tang. He is driven, prickly, selfish, and combative. He is critically fallible, and while the film is very clear on where its position lies regarding artistic freedom under the Chinese government, it is also direct in showing where Tang’s own actions lead to misfortune. His fellow artist Gold (Yihao Miao) showcases an opposite approach to Tang’s: gaudy, cynical, and insincere, he hand-paints and sells ceramic penises in a facile attempt to court notoriety without controversy. Yihao plays him tremendously well.

Kristy Shan plays the complex and somewhat ambiguous documentary maker Mary very well. Yuan Li, however, is poorly served by Zheng Kuo and Wang Qing’s screenplay. She does not even receive a name, credited in the titles only as “Tang’s Wife”.

Production values are to-the-point and documentary-like, as is common with most contemporary independent film in China. While the musical score is, again as typical, very sparsely applied, Roger Lin’s evocative compositions lend a great deal of power each time they emerge.

This is an appropriately fiery indictment of Chinese government censorship over contemporary art, as well as an effective character study of a difficult, challenging artist facing it. While its budget and independent production were always going to lead to a certain level of obscurity, the high quality of the performances and direction leave it desperately deserving a broader audience. I worry that a handful of festival screenings and an already deleted release on Hong Kong DVD are all that it got.