I thought so far that the two movies are portraying a grand image of Communism. I am curious about how To Live will end up because right now it has started to make Maoism look bad with the death of the main character's son. Another thing i found very interesting was the portrayal of women in the movie. I thought that China had pretty low standards of how to treat women. With the way Fugui's wife treats him, you would think that in a country like China Fugui would simply beat his wife. And with the main character's wishy washyness, about how he serves whoever will keep him alive, you would think China would have a big problem with this movie because of the social implications. As for the documentary on The East is Red, i found it very similar to the way the United States had propaganda videos in the school system about the World War and sex. I was wondering what type of censorship China has now considering it is moving towards a more capitalistic society?
Clint
Clint,
I also feel that "To Live" is very sympathetic to communism and would have liked to see the movie take a different turn. I am most disappointed with how the movie handled the death of Fugui's son. While it made communism look bad for a minute, I feel that the fact that his son hadn't slept for 3 days because he was working was greatly overshadowed. I felt that it did a better job in the second half by showing that no one was safe from the government but at the same time, everyone accussed stayed loyal to the party. I was also surprised with the amount of input Fugui's wife had throughout the movie. I assumed that Chinese women were looked down upon when the movie made them look equal. I feel the best thing that "To Live" did to show communism in a poor light was to show how poor hospitals were run due to the party and its accusations. This scene showed that communism had its problems and these problems were not minor.
I was also very interested in the way in which women were depicted in both the movie and in the documentary. While the women were certainly seen as deferential to their husbands, I was suprised at just how involved they were in the movement as soldiers, enforcers, and even in the documentary as politicians. I think part of that was brave little soldier fighting for Mao proganda, even the women fighting and everyone doing their part as with the East is Red production, but with the interviews etc, that is not just the case. It is still a very interesting change from the typical roles women played in society and I'd be interested to see if this is a result of times changing in general or purely the socialism/communism that Mao preached.
Posted by: kathleen at October 22, 2004 03:01 PMClint,
As I did some research on my own I discovered that through the ideology of communism the theory is that both women and men should be equal in society. This is purely the ideology of communism that all are equal, but it is not what transpired with the introduction of communism in China in 1949. In fact, women were oppressed as they had been throughout the history of China and still remain oppressed in present day China. One of the main ways of controlling the female population was infanticide, in which female babies were killed. This action was considered to be socially acceptable up until the 19th centruy and still exists throughout very remote areas of China today. Another socially acceptable practice was foot-binding in which women's feet would be bound together at a young age in order to achieve the desired lady like feet. The interesting thing about the oppression of women in China is that they are considered the head of the household in traditional Chinese society, as China is a matriarchal society. In "To Live", we see a women who is slightly oppressed. We do not see infanticide as the couple has a female child. Also, we see no indication of foot-binding in this film. Overall, the rights of women in communist China have made progress from some of the barbarian socially acceptable practices that dominated Chinese society throughout much of the 19th century.
--Tim
Posted by: Tim Blair at October 24, 2004 05:52 PM