To Live (1994): Modern Chinese history through a human lens
The personal and the political are inextricably linked in this moving tale of one family living through 20th century China's sociopolitical changes.
Rarely has history been told with as much emotion as it has in Zhang Yimou’s film To Live, his adaptation of Yu Hua’s novel which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994 and was the favourite film of its jury president Clint Eastwood, though the Palme d’Or would go to Pulp Fiction. The movie not only charts thirty years of Chinese history during Mao Zedong’s premiership, it also tells an intimate tale about one family whose circumstances are inextricably linked to the changing country around them. It is both a triumphant feat of historical recreation and a powerful work of humanism.
To Live covers Chairman Mao’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China after the Civil War, his subsequent economic campaign The Great Leap Forward, and the rise and fall of the Cultural Revolution in which Mao purged the last remnants of capitalism from society. Zhang Yimou renders each stage of China’s modern history with remarkable veracity; everything from the film’s production design to its costuming brings the settings to life. It makes To Live essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the establishment of contemporary China.
But whilst Zhang Yimou’s film evokes Maoist China with a rich eye for historical detail he equally maintains a laser-like focus on the impact it had on the ordinary families living through this period. To Live locates a moving story amidst China’s changing identity: the plight of the Xu family whose turmoil in the thirty years of Mao’s leadership feels representative of what many people experienced amidst a nation in upheaval.
Husband and wife Fugui and Jiazhen, played in two beautiful performances by Ge You and Gong Li, are Chinese gentry who have fallen on hard times as a result of Fugui’s gambling addiction. When conflict resumes in the Civil War, Fugui is drafted into the People's Liberation Army and upon returning home narrowly escapes execution like many other people of his social class. In subsequent years, he and Jiazhen endure a life of financial hardship, particularly when their belongings are seized as part of a national drive to make weaponry for invading Taiwan.
At every stage, Zhang Yimou associates the struggles happening in their household to a wider historical context; the personal and the political are always connected in To Live. When Fugui and Jiazhen’s adult daughter experiences complications during childbirth, for instance, all the doctors have been sent to do hard labour by Mao’s government for being over educated, and the students left in charge are not experienced enough to prevent tragedy from occurring.
Through the eyes of the Xu family, we see the failures of communism and the ways in which Mao’s economic and social policies trickled down to China’s working classes who experienced poverty, corruption, even death. This is depicted so effectively that the movie was officially banned by the Chinese government upon release, though many cinemas still showed it. And yet there is a constant sense of optimism through To Live which celebrates the tenacity of the Xu’s spirit and their ability to triumph over every adversity that befalls them.
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Directed by Zhang Yimou. Written by Lu Wei. Produced by Chiu Fu-sheng, Funhong Kow and Christophe Tseng. Starring Ge You, Gong Li, Niu Ben, Guo Tao and Jiang Wu. Distributed by The Samuel Goldwyn Company. 132 minutes. China.