Huangtudi
Does the film Huang tudi (Yellow Earth) offer a critique of the Communist revolution? If so where and how?
Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou’s Yellow Earth is a meaningful and controversial film that highlights the young and old, realist and idealist, as well as the ideal utopia and bounded bureaucracies – touching on the notion of fate. Set in early 1939 in China, Yellow Earth follows the story of Gu Qing, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) soldier sent out among the peasants in Northern Shaanxi to collect folksongs, to which the Communists intend to rewrite new lyrics to help inspire soldiers and peasant followers to fight the Japanese invasion and work towards the revolution. Gu Qing comes across a village holding a wedding procession and is invited to join the feast. He stays at a peasant’s home, and meets a father with a daughter (Cuiqiao) and a son (Hanhan).
There are several significant scenes in the film that suggests the filmmaker’s potential critique of the Communist revolution (CR). The film begins with a magnificent panning view of the vast and mountainous landscape. As with many nationalistic films, landscape plays a very important role, as it indirectly depicts the village peasants as slaves to the land, and a sense of hopelessness that comes with working the land. The several slow scenes focused on the horizon and landscape also represent the notion of an ‘unchanging China’, and it’s backwardness with it’s social and political margins. The film has many scenes depicting the natural surroundings and connection with the peasants, as illustrated in the scenes where Cuiqiao is seen continually making the trip from her home to the Yellow River to get water everyday. Although this chore would be one that the whole village is active in, the camera only focuses on Cuiqiao. The walk is symbolic of the tie that Cuiqiao and the other villagers have to the land. This notion is reiterated by the filmmaker’s use of long, wide shots of her coming across the land –
Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou’s Yellow Earth is a meaningful and controversial film that highlights the young and old, realist and idealist, as well as the ideal utopia and bounded bureaucracies – touching on the notion of fate. Set in early 1939 in China, Yellow Earth follows the story of Gu Qing, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) soldier sent out among the peasants in Northern Shaanxi to collect folksongs, to which the Communists intend to rewrite new lyrics to help inspire soldiers and peasant followers to fight the Japanese invasion and work towards the revolution. Gu Qing comes across a village holding a wedding procession and is invited to join the feast. He stays at a peasant’s home, and meets a father with a daughter (Cuiqiao) and a son (Hanhan).
There are several significant scenes in the film that suggests the filmmaker’s potential critique of the Communist revolution (CR). The film begins with a magnificent panning view of the vast and mountainous landscape. As with many nationalistic films, landscape plays a very important role, as it indirectly depicts the village peasants as slaves to the land, and a sense of hopelessness that comes with working the land. The several slow scenes focused on the horizon and landscape also represent the notion of an ‘unchanging China’, and it’s backwardness with it’s social and political margins. The film has many scenes depicting the natural surroundings and connection with the peasants, as illustrated in the scenes where Cuiqiao is seen continually making the trip from her home to the Yellow River to get water everyday. Although this chore would be one that the whole village is active in, the camera only focuses on Cuiqiao. The walk is symbolic of the tie that Cuiqiao and the other villagers have to the land. This notion is reiterated by the filmmaker’s use of long, wide shots of her coming across the land –
References: Barme, G. & Minford, J. (1989), ‘Yellow Earth: an Unwelcoming Guest’, Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books), pp. 251-269. Source: Course Reader Chong, Woei Lien (2003), ‘Nature and the Healing of Trauma: Early Films by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige’, Critique Internationale, pp. 48-58. Source: http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/chong2.pdf Von Kowallis, I.E. ‘Huang ti di (Yellow Earth) (1984) – Summary’, pp. 1-3. Source: Course Reader Yau, Esther C.M. (1987), ‘Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a Non-Western Text’, Vol. 41(2), pp. 22-33.