BLUE KITE
A film review by Maoist Internationalist Movement
- MIM Notes 98, March 1995 - by MC17 and MC206
This movie about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China was meant to be reactionary and in that context, it's a pretty good film. It's a good film not because it portrays the important advances made in the Cultural Revolution in a way that makes clear to the uneducated audience why the revolution was such an advance (it doesn't even try to do this). It is a good film because it basically tells the truth.
The movie focuses on a family that faces a lot of hard times through the Cultural Revolution. Out of context, to an Amerikan audience, these hard times could seem like the fault of a failed revolution. This is a big problem with the movie. When one man dies of liver trouble, if the audience does not know how much medicine has advanced during the revolution they would think this is the fault of backward medical care that came from a failed revolution. When another man is going blind due to eye problems, the audience is again left thinking it is just the failure of medicine under Mao that left the doctor with only the option of suggesting that he not put too much stress on his eyes.
On the positive side, the movie lets all of it's characters survive the Great Leap Forward with collective kitchens and enough (though scarce) food. One of the brothers in the family is clearly a Rightist by all that he says and does, and he is sent off to a rectification camp where he seems to learn some things. The main character admits that he was a Rightist all along. The husband of the main character is also sent off to rectification camp and the movie does not try to lie and make these camps out to be evil. The husband is about to return when he is killed in an accident by a falling tree. Again, some audiences will take this to mean that the revolution killed him, but we later learn that the husband did not view the rectification bitterly and was not angry that people had denounced his liberal political views.
Later in the movie the main character marries an older party member: she says she is doing it to provide some structure for her son. As soon as they move in with him the audience is struck with the size of his house and the amount of his wealth. Compared to the situation of the average Chinese, this man is really well off. After a while he tells his wife and son that he is being criticized and that he will be arrested soon. As he tells them this we see him burning papers. The thinking viewer of this movie should take this as an example of correct criticism during the Cultural Revolution. This man had used his position in the party to gain wealth and a bourgeois life. He even used his wife as a servant, contrary to the situation she had enjoyed in her previous marriages to poorer men.
There are examples in this movie of the Cultural Revolution going too far. In fact, Mao criticized the ultraleftists in the Cultural Revolution for their line of "criticize all, overthrow all." He said that they went too far and were too violent when struggle should have been carried out without violence and when people should have been rectified rather than punished. There were clearly people who were wrongly criticized, but there was only one example of serious punishment for a non- existent crime.
One revolutionary young woman quits her job in the army because of what is hinted at as gender discrimination. She is later put in prison during the Hundred Flowers campaign of 1957. This is probably a realistic example of one of the errors of the revolution. Some people who were not politically enemies were punished because of appearances of their actions or because of overzealous cadre. She is released during the Cultural Revolution. And the prisons were not portrayed as evil institutions of torture. Again a mark in favor of the movie.
The movie also tries to portray an atmosphere of fear in which people had to watch every word they spoke for fear that they would be punished. The reality of this is that incorrect ideas should be criticized whenever and wherever they are found. It is a good example of liberalism that the main characters of the movie let friends and relatives slip by saying reactionary things without struggling with them over these things. Of course the movie did not try to explain why it is that people would want to struggle against incorrect ideas because that was not it's purpose. Wait until MIM produces some films.
This movie is good for Maoists to see. It is important that people realize that the Cultural Revolution was not perfect, but that it did a lot to advance the struggle against liberalism. In the context of study about Chinese history and what really happened, this film could be informative. But if you have not studied up on the Cultural Revolution and do not yet know why the people were encouraged to criticize their leaders, you would be better off sending $8 to MIM for a copy of Jean Daubier's book, THE HISTORY OF THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION, rather than seeing this misleading movie.
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