Thursday, July 1, 2010

the review of "Yellow Earth"

“Yellow Earth” is the début film of Chen Kaige who is one of the “Fifth Generation” filmmakers of China which is the well-known group in the world, and the movie is considered to be a true masterpiece in history of Chinese film industry in terms of transformation from the tradition style to the new style—in the movie, there is no obvious story line as a plot, but there is unimaginable reality that is depicted desperately and vividly which was never carried out in Chinese movie before.

As we are able to notice the literal meaning from its title, “Yellow Earth(黄土地)”, the movie shows closely the life of peasantry who resides along the Yellow River in northern Shanxi province in the late 1930s by the realistic description. I think that the director who had gone through Cultural Revolution, being sent to rural area from city and denouncing his father as a Red Guard when he was a youth, put his experiences into the movie as Gu Qing, a cultural worker from the Eight Route Army, who tried to collect folk songs in order to transform the national culture and encourage the Communist force against Japanese.

When Gu and Cuiqing’s family were having lunch after they worked on the field together, Gu was asking them to sing some indigenous songs and wondering how they remember all the songs. The response from Cuiqing’s father to Gu was that peasants sing either happy or sad, and they remember folk songs because their life is difficult. Through the conversation, I think that even though the “revolutionary” soldier tried to learn and enlighten with ordinary peasants by collecting folk songs, he actually could never understand the “bitter tunes” and realities of people there. As the more he tried to be identified with the local people, the more he stood out to be differentiated by his attitude and gesture—laughing alone and using revolutionary words—during the conversation with the village people. As for Shanxi’s people, songs were simply sung and remembered spontaneously within their daily “bitter” life; however, as for the soldier, folk songs were the object to be “collected” and the means of transformation. The soldier’s job was maintaining the folk songs, and yet what he actually was doing was distorting folk songs. It represents that Chinese Communist Party has been trying to preserve customs and traditions, but they were actually exploiting and taking advantage of the people. No matter what there were wars and political revolutions, the life of ordinary peasants was still going on and existed as hardship and bitterness as if the nature has been there all the time as it is.

In the movie, the soldier talked to Cuiqing and her family about the “liberated” life in yan’an where the cradle of Chinese Communist party was, and Cuiqing started dreaming about the utopianism life without gender inequality and gap between the poor and the rich. Even though the soldier gave Cuiqing hope, he could not realize her hope as leaving her behind. After Cuiqing got married forcefully, she tried to escape from her home by herself. However, the director did not show audience whether she successfully crossed the river or failed to go to “dream” land. I want to ask that was the revolution and communism successful or not?

There is the scene that when the soldier was leaving the village, Cuiqing asked him to take herself with him. The soldier responded that there are rules in army, so he would come back to take her after he gets permission according to the rules. Then, Cuiqing asked him again that if the rules can be changed. I think that “Yellow Earth” was a movie that tried to change the traditional rules in terms of film’s aesthetics and contents in China by using the picture with vast angle and various perspectives, the screen with long and tedious shots, and folk songs with intense and unique expression of poetic means.

1 comment:

  1. I want to share some thoughts after I watched “Yellow Earth”. We have talked little bit about “gender issue” on last Friday and today. I think it is important to notice that, in the movie, initially the girl, Cui Qiao, was just waiting for the solider to come back, but the solider did not come back and then Cui Qiao actually took the action by herself to go to “dream land”, Yan’An.

    Since women were expected to be sacrificed and suffered in Chinese society because of its traditions, particularly by Confucianism, Chinese women were treated unequally in household and society. Therefore, I think the ideology and philosophy of communism by the government was very appealing propaganda especially towards women and proletarian peasants and workers. I think that CuiQiao represents one of Chinese women at that time who were easily affected by communism propaganda and Cultural Revolution later on.

    And also, I think that the use of girl as a main character in the movie who was weak, suffered, and discriminated in Chinese society gives a positive aspect of communism influence because the girl started dreaming of better life in Yan’an. However, by ambiguous ending of the movie, the director wanted say that even if the communist regime had a “good” influence on the weak to have the “dream”, it is hard to say that the communism really had positive influences upon China especially for the people like Cui Qiao.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.