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China's 5th Generation Filmmakers
Personal Revolutions:
Cinema has the ability to inspire a nation's people into pride or resentment. The latter is found in three Chinese films once banned from release in their own country: To Live, The Blue Kite, and Farewell My Concubine. The realism portrayed in the lives of individuals and families grasps the negative effects brought about by Chairman Mao's socialist upheaval during China's Cultural Revolution. Parallels signifying persecution during the fall of national institutions mirror the dissent of artists during the Cultural Revolution and the films' directors, Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang and Chen Kaige, being banned in China. The directors, all from The Beijing Film Academy's 5th Generation of filmmakers, are part of an artistic reemergence in China after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Being the first graduates from the Academy after its' reopening, they redefined the impact of the Revolution with a perspective not readily welcomed by the Chinese government. Tian Zhuangzhuang, director of The Blue Kite was even barred from making any further films in China. Interwoven Histories-
The Blue Kite and To Live particularly focus on the impact of China's history on family life. Zhang Yimou's To Live, similarly follows the survival of a husband and wife over many hardships from the early 1920s to the end of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Ge You and Gong Li's performances in To Live portray a husband and wife who endure the worst of life, but an element of their family life survives. Zhang's optimism nourishes a message that families stay united regardless of how the government reshapes society. The Blue Kite's less optimistic tone shows a family trying to manage together but in the end is torn apart. What The Blue Kite and To Live do share thematically implies that Motherhood endured the severest hardships through the Cultural Revolution. Gong Li's characters in both To Live and Farewell My Concubine also show mothers as the axis upon which family life is balanced. In To Live she raises two children and endures both their deaths due to conditions brought about by the Cultural Revolution. In Farewell… she portrays a figure of motherhood to both Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) and Dieyi (Leslie Cheung). Though seemingly a love interest that puts a rift in the two opera singers' relationship, she becomes a caretaker to them both. Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine creates a different dynamic of family, that of an Opera Troupe, but similar in that the relationships are challenged by social and politcal pressures. In fact each film realizes a mother's loss of her child due to circumstances brought about by China's turbulent 20th century history. In Farewell… Dieyi's prostitute mother abandons him as a child to the opera troupe, a loss attributed to her inability to provide for him. He and Xiaolou both find a mother figure in Juxian (Gong Li), also a prostitute. Yet in a climatic scene Xiaolou and Dieyi both denounce Juxian for her social standing in front of an angry mob of revolutionaries. Tietou's mother Shujuan in The Blue Kite is arrested and separated from him at the end of the film also by an angry mob of revolutionaries. Their separation is due to Shujuan's marriage to a man prosecuted for being a counter-revolutionary. Jiazhen (Gong Li) losses her children in To Live, one dies working in a steel mill, the other while giving birth. All of these examples are in some way caused by harmful social conditions that culminate to devastating ends during the Cultural Revolution. Continue reading this essay to explore more in-depth themes of China's 5th Generation Film directors. Links provided below.
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Contributor's Note
When the past meets future for Jason, the moment is fueled by a creative background in music, writing, film and philosophy providing a nexus of the complex world to come. He is currently a freelance writer and ghostwriter of books, articles and screenplays.
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Personal Revolutions
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