TO LIVE
(HUO ZHE)
A film review by Raymond Johnston
Copyright 1994 Raymond Johnston
Dir: Zhang Yimou Starring: Ge You, Gong Li, Niu Ben, Guo Tao Based on the novel by Yu Hau Winner of Best Actor and Grand Jury Prizes at Cannes ERA International Films in association with Shanghai Film Studios
Zhang Yimou helped put Mainland Chinese cinema on the world map. He is one of the leaders of China's "fifth generation" of film makers. JU DUO and RAISE THE RED LANTERN both told tragic period stories in visually colorful settings. His new project, TO LIVE; or as it appears on the film itself, LIFETIMES; attempts to expand his horizons from telling simple period tales to telling an epic covering all of recent Chinese history.
TO LIVE follows the life of a decadent gambler's family from the waning days of the Nationalist Government through the Communist Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and its aftermath. Each of these eras is set off by a separate title. The events of this family's life are picked up and continued with characters being a decade older.
The drama is quite touching but increasingly turns from being a clever and original story full of sharp plot twists to being a story of predictable plot devices. The odd events that bring the gambler from being a rich man to being an itinerant puppet master become in the second half of the film a series of standard family tragedies. The film is best when it tries to convey the paranoia of the post- revolution chaos. Characters are aware that missing an important rally could mean the suggestion of being counter-revolutionary, and ultimately death. The film is worst when it tries to personalize the events of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution routine melodrama. Zhang Yimou's other films are notable for brilliant and vibrant color schemes. Much of this film is in a drab blue and grey, the omnipresent colors of the post-revolution village and villagers.
Somewhat compensating for this are several truly engaging performances by Ge You as the one time gambler and Gong Li as his wife. They, and all the cast, depict their characters with extreme conviction. The settings, from colorful mansions to drab communal buildings are also entirely credible if not always visually interesting. The ability of the characters to find elements of joy in their increasingly chaotic lives is also a theme of the film that is well realised. Through all of the turbulence of historical events depicted, the main characters manage to experience the full range of human emotion. They manage as the title suggests, to live.
All of this is not to say the film is not good, but following so closely on the heels of the very similar FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE it is by comparison a disappointment. That film gets much more mileage out of the Chinese opera than this film gets out of puppet shows. FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE also builds up to higher and more significant crescendos. The terror of the Cultural Revolution is more real in FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE because more of the action is on screen. In TO LIVE, much of that action is off screen, people run to and from events that we do not see. Bernardo Bertolucci's THE LAST EMPEROR, not strictly speaking a Chinese film, also covers many of the same events with more emotion and visual impact. I recommend TO LIVE, but it covers already well trod ground in a sometimes too predictable way.
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