1971 Xian, China
Xiu Li
1952
He Di, a small town within Xian, China
Interviewed on January 27, 2019
By Susanqi Jiang (Sue)
During my childhood, I didn’t watch many movies. Growing up with two sisters and two brothers in a rural town called He Di (translated to “River Bottom”) in rural Xian, money was tight and we were happy if our stomachs were full. I think by the time I was in my late teen years, I had only watched one or two movies in total, which I only have faint memories of. The first movie I remember watching that did leave a deep mark on me was the film Zao Chun Er Yue (Writer’s Note: English title is Early Spring/Threshold of Spring) in the winter of 1971, when I was 18 years old. In that year, China was still embroiled in the Cultural Revolution. Any western influence on China, which included contemporary art, plays, books, films and other “instruments of the bourgeois”, were heavily censored and labeled as “counterrevolutionary”. Because of this, watching movies was not an activity I was easily able to indulge in. Zao Chun Er Yue was the only non-propaganda movie I watched during my teenage years, and it was only thanks to a mistake- albeit a costly mistake for the movie screener and his family, as they suffered from years of political backlash- that I was even able to watch it.
It was one winter day in 1971, when my friend, Maiqi, whispered into my ear during class: “My brother is hosting a movie screening today near the school. Let’s go see it once classes are over!” Maiqi’s brother was a film projectionist. Living in a small rural town of He Di, there were no theatres in our area, so film projectionists, like Maiqi’s brother, would have to carry their heavy equipment with them if they wanted to provide a free screening of certain movies in more isolated, impoverished areas like He Di. At that time, my family and most of my neighbors were poor and couldn’t afford theaters, so these open field film screenings were some of the only opportunities for us to watch films, and we truly cherished these rare precious experiences- even if the movie was bad. Even if we had to walk an hour to go see it.
I was excited all day to watch the film Maiqi told me about. What was the film going to be about? Were the actors handsome? I couldn’t focus. That night, after school was over, I along with Maiqi and two other friends, walked to the area in which the movie would be screened together. It was not a terrible walk by usual standards: we ended up walking around 30 to 40 minutes. Once we arrived, the field was already packed. These screenings happened in our rural town so infrequently that every time there was a free showing, word of mouth quickly spread the information from one end of Xian to the other. Everyone that was within one hour walking distance from the screening area would scramble to come see the movie. The seating area in the front of the movie screen was so packed we had to sit on the other side of the screen. Because the screen was made up of a white fabric sheet, images projected on the front of the monitor were visible from the back. Although sitting in the back meant all the images would be flipped for us, my friends and I didn’t mind. The benches were hard and the air was ice cold, but we were so excited to watch the movie that we didn’t even care.
Zao Chun Er Yue was a historical film, set in the 1920s during Republican era China. The story is set in a small coast-side village in southern China. Since I had lived in the farming countryside in Northwest China my whole life, with bitter winters, I was fascinated by the beautiful visuals of the film: although in black and white, the landscape and background scenery truly made the setting of the film look so beautiful, a place where both white flower trees and young love blossomed. The main actor was very handsome and both Maiqi and I fell immediately in love with his character, Lan. I still remember the bittersweet closing line of the film, in which the lovely main character, before he leaves, promises to return to his lover: “Please wait, Lan. We will have a long, long future together.” I swear, all the girls in that field watching the film swooned. I promised myself that someday in the future, I would like to go and visit this beautiful, warm, spring paradise and dreamed romantic dreams of my own tragic, star-crossed love story.
I’m afraid that you might find the love story dull. The romance portrayed in the movie was very pure, innocent, and wholesome. There were no kisses, no touching, no physical expressions of love. Instead, all the love and emotion between the two characters were expressed through the lingering gazes, the longing looks, the wistful eyes that spoke and expressed love in a time when two lovers could not physically demonstrate their affection to each other. The main actor and actress did a phenomenal job acting eyes that had to speak a thousand words- we truly believed they were in love. The romance was very understated. It might be seen as prudish even, compared to many of today’s romance movies, in which a relationship must be physical before love even begins. I find today’s romance movies not romantic at all: too in-your-face, too forced, too dependent on sexual scenes in proving that two characters are in love. The fact that they were never able to openly express their love made certain scenes, such as Lan’s sacrifice of love for duty, all the more heartbreaking for me.
Another reason why I still remember watching this movie was because of the political controversy it sparked within my village. In many ways, it was a movie that had underlying political themes and implicit social critiques pertaining to women and the oppressive nature of society. Zao Chun Er Yue reflected the rigid expectations of behavior enforced upon women- particularly widows. Because of oppressive feudal traditions, widows could not engage in a relationship without being ostracized by their families and community and just like the disgraced character in the movie, many committed suicide in the face of public humiliation and shame. The movie espoused modern ideas of individual freedom. The ideas in support of individual freedom in the face of expectations, duty, and order were seen as threatening by government leaders.
Maiqi’s brother got fired from his job and was forced to confess to being a “capitalist roader” by the Red Guards. His family was publicly shamed for their son’s actions of projecting a counterrevolutionary film with supposedly bourgeois elements. In a tragic sequence of events in which his mistake shadowed him for the rest of his life, Maiqi’s brother was targeted for years by the Red Guards. Despite holding a passion for film, he not only had to publicly confess, but also had to abandon projecting movies. He later became a farmer. After the punishment of Maiqi’s brother, which left me very shaken, I was extra careful in regards to watching movies, in case the Red Guards came knocking on my door.
After Zao Chun Er Yue, all the movies I watched for the next several years were propaganda films, like The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl. Those films were mainly instruments of power consolidation. I was not affected with emotion like I was in Zao Chun Er Yue for many years. It was only when the Cultural Revolution was over, when I watched a movie starring one of the original stars from Zao Chun Er Yue, did similar feelings of awe and emotion, that I felt at 18 watching two lovers fall in love in a spring paradise, wash over me.
