Released: 2019 Viewed: January 2020
The film begins in Inner Mongolia in the early 1990s. Two young boys, Xingxing and Haohao, are playing beside a local reservoir. Later, although we do not discover exactly what happened till the end of the film, we see that Xingxing has been drowned in the reservoir. The leads to trauma for the parents of Xingxing and guilt for Haohao’s parents who blame him for the accident.
The film later flashes back to the period from about 1986 to the early 1990s. Xingxing and Haohao’s parents, Yaojun [Wang Jingchun] and Liyun [Yong Mei], and Yingming [Xu Cheng] and Haiyan [Ai Liya] (respectively) were then working in a large industrial factory and living close together in a factory dormitory.
The movie recounts the events of the time, both personal and more generally, showing the change from the old Maoist system to the period of opening up and reform. But, as the film shows, this was not a linear process with the occasional reversion to stricter control, particularly on moral issues. Liyun becomes pregnant with a second child but although both parents want to keep the child, Haiyan, who is in charge of family planning in the factory, insists on an abortion. Ultimately, they are all made redundant as part of the policy of economic reform.
After the layoff, Yaojun and Liyun adopt another son and move south to a small city in Fujian where he runs a small repair workshop. Later (chronologically although it comes early in the film) we see that the now teenage son is in trouble at school and resents his parents for trying to turn him into a surrogate Xingxing.
After a period of furiously cutting backwards and forwards in time, the closing sections of the film are more linear and we see the two families reunited. Yingming has done much better economically but Haiyan is terminally ill and has never ceased to regret the forced abortion.
The film in thoughtful and restrained, the acting is excellent and the director (Wang Xiaoshuai ) generally avoids the clichés of China’s transformation. The film shows the dramatic changes which have taken place in Chinese society in an understated and nuanced manner and is much more effective than, for example, the most recent work of Jia ZhangKe. However, and perhaps inevitably, we have seen many of the topics (mass layoffs, forced abortion, illicit dancing to tapes procured in the south, etc.) many times before in Chinese movies.
But, even with a three hour running time, the film tries to pack in far too many stories. In addition to the very compressed version of the story above we have a number of side plots, including a very unlikely relationship between the taciturn Yaojun and Yingming’s younger and attractive sister Moli [Qi Xi]). This detracts from rather than adds to the film. For example, the involvement of one child in the death of another might be enough to ensure livelong feelings of guilt without the need to throw in forced abortion as well.
Director Wang has certainly succumbed to the temptation, which seems to prevail among many Chinese directors, of trying to tell his characters entire life story (and a lot of the country’s social history) in one film. (See The Summer is Gone (also set in Inner Mongolia) for a more focused approach over just one summer).
In addition, the movement backwards and forward in time (and place) is confusing. As the characters change little in appearance in the first period, the film relies heavily on clothes and context to show where we are. The movement also distracts from the emotional impact of the film as one is trying to recall why a character is behaving in a particular way and, in some cases, we don’t yet know the full story.
In contrast, the concluding section of the film moves much more slowly and tries to wrap up too many aspects of the plot as though to compensate for the earlier confusion. Presumably the objective is to show that the bonds formed in youth last forever (echoing the more meaningful Chinese title).
The film is still well worth watching but a more focused approach could have led to a more memorable film. Unusually it is well received by both Western and Chinese audiences with a 8 on Douban.
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