Customer Reviews

Girl From Hunan [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the most visually beautiful films I've ever seen.

The protaganist, a young woman, is married to a young boy, who is the only child of a couple who own a grain farm and mill. She is treated as little more than a servant and as someone who will eventually produce an heir (whenever the boy is old enough to become interested in that).

While working the farm and basically babysitting her husband, the girl falls in love with a farm hand. Her situation becomes dire and potentially tragic and you cannot help but ache for her.

Each of the scenes is punctuated by a beautiful, static image: wheat in the wind, rain on tile roofs, etc. It is a lovely, lovely film, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys poetry in their movies.

By analyzing the role of freedom in the movie The Girl from Hunan, one can find its true meaning. Xiao Xiao, the story's main character is confronted with a variety of issues concerning the meaning of freedom. She has a difficult time defining her own level of freedom and the boundaries that restrict her. What is freedom anyway?

In the movie, there is a scene in which the characters are discussing a group of school girls who are allowed to marry whoever they want. The girls called it ziyou (freedom). The characters of the story, who were villagers talked as though freedom was an outlandish idea. When they asked Xiao Xiao, who was forced to marry a little boy, whether she thought freedom was good, she had difficulty answering. Her difficulty likely stemmed from her knowing that freedom was good, but that the society in which she lived viewed anything that went beyond the cultural norm in such a negative light, that it viewed freedom as a bad thing. Indeed, through this exchange the audience is forced to consider what the definition of freedom truly is. Is freedom the ability to go against established norms? If it isn't, then how can one be truly free if he is forced to live his life according to cultural normality?

The point is that one's conduct is dictated by the society at large. If society expects a young woman to marry a 2-year old boy and bring him up, then she doesn't have the right to refuse. If that same society has hard-fast rules against extra-marital relations then it's only natural for it to also establish a system of punishment to enforce those rules. Basically, there is no such thing as true freedom. Whatever a person does has consequences that are dictated by the society. That is to say that the only freedom that one truly has is the ability to choose different paths-and to go off a path is an acceptance of any consequences that could result. Of particular interest is the subtle use of fate to depict how Xiao Xiao is able to go unpunished due to her having a boy-for it isn't fate that put her in the predicament, it was the relationship between her actions and the expectations of the society...the punishment was not formulated by fate, and she acted with free will.

Some of the symbolisms that are used to show boundaries are: one, the fact that Xiao Xiao is forced to bind her breasts is a direct attempt by the society to hide her blooming sexuality and to restrict her femininity; two, the numerous shots of the mountainside and other natural surroundings reflect her isolation from the outside society; three, the frequent shots of water showed a dual relationship between a free life, which ebbs and flows wherever it wishes, and the inability for people to join with this free life without suffering or dying-water is both a life giving element, and one that can take life away. This last use of symbolism is also prevalent in the scene in which Xiao Xiao loses her virginity-set free, the water turns the weight that pulverizes the grain (seed of life).

Through the use of the symbolism and the strength of the plot, the audience is both presented with the question and the answer to what freedom is. The movie is, at once, enjoyable and intriguing. For these reasons, it will likely be considered a classic for years to come.

I agree with a prior review that this is a powerful and beautiful film, but to simply call it a love story set in quaint rural China is sugarcoated at best. This film is powerful for its ascetics, yes, but it is even more powerful for the haunting revelation of the horrors of feudal China (arranged marriages, etc) and the abandonment and detachment between social classes, even post-revolution. On top of that, it almost glamorizes a rape, which somehow worked to make the woman love her forbidden interest. All of this makes for a complex and hauntingly powerful film, but we cannot separate it from both the lessons of poverty and the trap of feudalism. I do recommend the film, but only to be watched with both eyes open.