The Chinaman

A charcoal-skained draughtsman, desperate for employment, persuades the blithe Everyman Max to perch upon a wobbling stool while he conjures a likeness in furious, smudged strokes. Mid-session, the inkwell disgorges a rubber-limbed clown whose porcelain grin masks menace; the harlequin lunges at the easel and tears away the half-finished caricature of a slant-eyed, queue-wearing celestial that the artist had sketched for cheap laughs. What follows is a jittery danse macabre: parchment rips, Max’s own silhouette fractures, and the clown becomes both censor and avenger, flogging the yellowed stereotype until it bleeds soot. The film ends with the artist’s portfolio in tatters, Max’s portrait unfinished, and the inkwell burping up the last drop of pigment—an absurdist exorcism of racist iconography rendered as vaudeville exorcism.