To Live

“馒头长大就不骑牛了，坐火车，坐飞机，那时候，日子会越来越好。”

To Live by Zhang Yi Mou (1994) is a socially and politically aware film that was banned by the China government and the director himself was barred from filmmaking for two years. Out of the Zhang Yi Mou films that I have watched, To Live would be my favourite. Watching this film two years back in class, I barely had any interest in the movie when it started – I thought the movie would be grim, serious, tragic and too politically involved, yet my initial feelings were wrong, at the end of the movie, the plot left a lasting impression on me.

The life of the couple, Fugui and Jiazhen, is fraught with misfortunes, but the movie keeps a positive tone despite the turns of events for the worse. Alike to the “mono no aware” theme underlying in Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu, there is a sense of “mono no aware” in To Live too, but the movie is certainly more complex than those of Ozu’s, since both directors aim to achieve different social messages through their film mediums.

The span of the movie recounts the change of China’s political scene throughout the years, namely, The Chinese Civil War, The Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. At every stage of the nation’s political changes, the couple loses and gains something in their lives, adding personal point-of-views to the nation’s revolution.

I also noticed the extensive amount of Chariman Mao images incorporated in the movie when the plot moves to the cultural-revolution period, even if the characters do not mention communism values frequently, the placement of these communism themed objects helps the audience to understand the period of the movie is set in.

At the point of Fengxia being pregnant, I expected the film to move towards a happy ending after the bouts of suffering the characters went through, I thought the plot would tie up with the old couple enjoying family bliss, enjoying good times with their new born grandchild. Yet the death of Fengxia proved otherwise, Fugui and Jiazhen lost both of their children. As an audience, I felt sad over this, but the characters’ resilience shined through – the scene of them joking over the number of buns that caused the doctor’s illness (which ultimately resulted in their daughter’s death) and the doctor’s wheat-free diet were brilliantly humorous, I remembered my peers and I were chuckling over it.

At the end of the day, if one could view life with humour, I am sure no matter what hardships life dishes out, we will still be able to overcome it. That is what it means for the movie, which is, to live.


References:
“To Live” - Zhang Yimou (1994)
To Live Film Review – Youtube
To Live (1994) - Wikipedia