MOVIES Jonathan Richards, Santa Fe Reporter
HOW YA GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM?
XIU XIU, THE SENT-DOWN GIRL Directed by Joan Chen With Lu Lu, Lopsang Grand Illusion not rated
In 1975, during that Chinese orgy of ideological puritanism known as the Cultural Revolution, young people from the cities were sent to the sticks to purge themselves of the stench of urban sophistication and learn good peasant values. The teenage Joan Chen escaped ruralization by being accepted at the state acting school, and went on to a distinguished international career ("The Last Emperor", "Twin Peaks", etc.) In her directorial debut, Chen revisists those days with the powerful there-but-for-the-grace-of-God tale of Xiu Xiu (Lu Lu), a teenager from Chengdu who is farmed out for a six-month apprenticeship to a horse herder, on some vague and woolly-headed plan that has something to do with the starting of a women's cavalry. Her assigned mentor, a rugged older man named Lao Jin (Lopsang), lives alone in a hide tent in the middle of a vast empty range near the Tibetan border. Though they share close quarters, Lao Jin is no sexual threat. He was castrated while the captive of enemy tribesmen. In any case, his temperament is gentle and protective. He does all the work, while Xiu Xiu sulks and puts on airs. She doesn't seem to learn a thing, but when her time should be up she becomes concerned when nobody comes to fetch her home. Eventually a peddlar shows up who tells her that the youth program's over, and everyone's scrambling for a permit to go home. For a roll in the hay, he might be able to pull a few strings.... The performances by the two principals are compelling. Lu Lu builds a character whose attitude is not always appealing, but whose helpless, battered naiveté touches your heart. Xiu Xiu's loss of innocence, which accelerates through a series of callers with cynical promises of help as word spreads of an easy lay in the wilderness, is made the more poignant by her continued cluelessness. Lao Jin's impotence extends to his inability to interfere; he can only withdraw in disapproving sadness as the stream of visitors passes through, and be ready to tenderly pick up the pieces. Lopsang makes him a figure of crippled dignity and wounded depth. There is a rugged, almost nightmarish beauty to Chen's vision of this forgotten outpost, where the eye sweeps from horizon to horizon unrelieved by anything but the encroaching menace of storm clouds. Chen shot most of her footage on location without a permit from the Chinese authorities, who would not have granted one and will not allow the film to be shown in China. Though it suffers at times from the monotony of its situation and the adolescent petulance of its heroine, "Xiu Xiu" is a trenchant indictment of a system in which ideology goes to bed with bureaucracy and the progeny are abandoned to indifference.
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