To Live (Huo Zhe) described the difficult life experiences of Fugui and Jiazhen during China’s tumultuous years from the 40’s to the 70’s. Fugui was a wealthy land owner who was pressed into the nationalist, then the communist armies, while Jiazhen was forced to do menial work. The many ironic situations they went through reflected the great changes happened in China. Fugui developed a philosophy of life similar to Ah Q, a fictional figure created by Lu Xun, who is famous for “spiritual victories”, or Euphemism, when faced with extreme defeat or humiliation. The movie conveys a message to its audience that the most important thing in life is to stay alive, and things will become better.
To Live is an epic film by the great director Zhang Yimou. Based on the novel of the same name by Yu Hua, To Live got Zhang Yimou banned from making films in China for two years following its release in 1994. Chinese officials were not pleased with the film's depiction of the Cultural Revolution. Today, at least from a western outsider's perspective, it looks like a monumental classic. Although its anti-Cultural Revolution (but not necessarily anti-Communist) message will likely keep it out of the official Chinese canon of important films, I expect that people will be watching this movie all over the world for many years to come.
I would nominate To Live as a top choice for high school teachers seeking to enlighten their students about 20th century China. The film frames the complex historical changes that took place in China between 1940 and 1980 through a single, extremely powerful lens--the trials of one family. A man, Fugui, his wife Jiazhen, and their two children, a playful little boy and a beautiful young girl who becomes deaf and mute as a result of childhood illness.
The father, Fugui, starts out as a bad guy, and in the opening scenes we witness his compulsive gambling and share in his wife and his father's shame when he loses all of their considerable fortune to his gambling rival. Little do they know that losing property now will mean keeping one's life later, when landlord status becomes a badge of dishonor and a cause for punishment or even execution.
After the birth of his daughter, Fugui winds up in the nationalist Kuomintang army, and then as a prisoner of war. Throughout these trials, Fugui manages to keep himself alive through providing entertainment in the form of shadow puppet plays. I loved the extremely animated voices the actor used in these shadow puppet play sequences, and I expect that American students of all ages and backgrounds will find them as exciting and interesting as I did.
Later, when Fugui returns to his wife, the story becomes more her saga, and the great actress Gong Li takes over the picture. This woman is a massive star in China, and it is easy to see why. Eventually, after a bittersweet marriage to a lame (literally, as he is crippled but not a bad person) Party member, their daughter dies in childbirth because the Cultural Revolution has replaced all the experienced obstetricians with teenage nurses. The death scene is incredibly wrenching, and the point, which is that the Cultural Revolution involved a kind of social suicide, is made emphatically. I can't recommend this film enough--beautiful cinematography, a great story, excellent performances, and, at the heart of it, a feeling for the dynamics of family life and the love of parents for their children that transcends all cultural boundaries.