YELLOW EARTH (1984)
"Of all us poor folk, girls are the saddest."
4 out of ****
Starring Xue Bai, Wang Xueyin, Tan Tuo, Liu Quiang Directed by Chen Kaige Written by Chen and Zhang Ziliang, from a novel by Ke Lan Cinematography by Zhang Yimou
Fate has two aspects in YELLOW EARTH, and both are pitiless. There is the fate decreed by nature, and there is the fate decreed by society. Young Cuiqiao (Xue Bai), a teenage girl in the rural Chinese region of Shaanxi, struggles against both these forces. She does not desire the marriage that has been arranged for her by her father. She would leave if she could, but it's 200 miles to Yenan, where she might join the Communist Army and escape the role her father has assigned her.
Society and the natural world conspire against her, but she is not even aware that other options exist until Gu (Wang Xueyin), a Communist, comes to stay in her farming community. He has come to gather folk songs, to bring back as inspiration for the army. He tells Cuiqiao about female comrades who crop their hair, who can fight the Japanese, who can read and write. "They have great spirit!" he says. "Oh," she replies, and she begins to consider the possibilities.
Meanwhile, she and her father (Tan Tuo) and her brother (Liu Quiang) go about their lives, while Gu studies them, asks questions, watches them live off the land. The land is an awesome presence in YELLOW EARTH, magnificent and imposing. In the flow of the river, the expanse of the sky, the sweep of the mountainside, there is a sense of space and freedom; at the same time, these landscapes overwhelm the people, and there is a sense of entrapment. They land provides for them, but they are also at its mercy.
We see water being gathered in buckets from the river, plough-blades turning up the earth: in these pastoral moments, the film surrenders to the rhythms of the natural world. There is a bond with the earth, an intimacy. It's not surprising that cinematographer Zhang Yimou grew up in this area: he sees it so vividly. But nature can be harsh. There is a drought; the earth becomes dry and dusty; food becomes scarce. The farmers pray for rain, and nature is oblivious. Meanwhile, Cuiqiao, trapped by the vast, indomitable landscape and the stifling social codes of her people, continues to weigh her options. Which fate is better?
Cuiqiao's sister is married to a man who beats her. Gu asks her father why she must live such a hard life. "Fate," he replies, as if that explained everything. In his mind, it does. But this so-called "fate" is simply the refusal to allow for other possibilities; as such, it is merely another name for oppression. Gu--who the film treats quite sympathetically--does not approve of the father's fatalism, but he too will fail Cuiqiao, and his failure is the failure of Communism. The movie ends with a stirring Maoist song--"The Communist Party will save us all!"--played over an image that makes the words savagely ironic. You need to see the movie to appreciate its full impact, but the censors who subjected the film to their humourless appraisal must have been immune to irony. Gu and the father are both guilty of the same sin: they can change Cuiqiao's "fate," but they don't, because it is easier not to. Nature may be harsh, but at least she plays fair.
YELLOW EARTH is a landmark film. With Zhang Junzhao's ONE AND EIGHT (1984), it launched the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. Zhang Yimou was the cinematographer on both films, and has since become the best-known director of the group, who are probably the most exciting filmmakers currently at work. On an artistic level, they're exciting because they make great movies, plain and simple. On a political level, they're exciting because they manage to make bold, subversive statements despite their government's best efforts to prevent them. YELLOW EARTH is a wonderful work of art, but it's also a fascinating study in the ways political artists can express themselves, even when limited by rigid restrictions.
Chen's later movies FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE and TEMPTRESS MOON were both banned in China, yet YELLOW EARTH escaped that fate, even though it manifests a profound disillusionment with Communism. You can't do anything about a drought, but you can give the people of your country--or your daughter--a better life, if you choose to do so. But the men in this movie are incapable of such a choice. You'd have better luck praying to the gods for rain.
A Review by David Dalgleish (July 7/98)
dgd@intouch.bc.ca
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