To Live
A swan song of an era: weeping in the manner of laughter, living toward death
Like the novel, the film is oppressive from beginning to end — an oppression that grows only heavier as Fugui’s life appears to improve, seeping into the heart through the most ordinary of words. I wish it were a bad film, as if that would somehow allow us to bury or even forget history. But it is a brilliant film, and it drives that oppression deep into my soul — even now, as I write these words, the epithet “capitalist-roader” still echoes in my mind.
As with In the Heat of the Sun, I will set aside discussion of craft and technique for another time, when I am better equipped. Let me speak of content instead — and of what I wish to vindicate.
I have read a number of reviews. Some say it falls short of other films on the same subject. Some say it fails to foreground the tragedy of the era — that it reflects personal tragedy more than historical tragedy, and is therefore insufficiently profound. Some say it is too tender, lacking the dark side of human nature. Some say it does not truly capture what “to live” means.
To those who say it fails to foreground the tragedy of the era, I reply: only through personal tragedy can the tragedy of an era be told.
Yes — Youqing’s death, Fengxia’s death — each loss seems, on the surface, a personal tragedy. Fugui and Jiazhen are forever haunted by regret: if only they had not sent Youqing to school that day, if only they had not given Professor Wang so many steamed buns and so much water. But I doubt any viewer overlooks this: Youqing went to school because the school was smelting steel; Youqing fell asleep against the wall because the Great Leap Forward’s steel campaign had utterly exhausted him. Fengxia died because the hospital had been overrun by students, because Professor Wang had not eaten in three days. No one in the film questions the era. No one questions whether the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution might be wrong. Think about that. Is this not precisely the truth of that time? The terror of that era lay not in the impossibility of resistance, but in the numbness — the inability to even recognize that one’s misfortune was the fault of the age, the numbness of never realizing one ought to resist at all.
To those who say it is too tender, I reply: only with great joy can there be great sorrow.
Yes — at first I too assumed a subject like this must inevitably involve cannibalism, earth-shattering tragedy, twisted and sinful humanity. Yet none of that appears. From beginning to end, the film is suffused with tenderness, even humor. Long’er is not a villain who turns his back on old friends; he gives Fugui a chest of shadow puppets. Chief Niu is not a tyrannical cadre; he preserves Jiazhen’s thermos and Fugui’s puppets. Chunsheng is not a climber who abandons his roots for success; he is deeply, tormentedly remorseful for having killed Youqing. Erxi is not a Red Guard drunk on revolutionary fervor; he seeks out the denounced Professor Wang to save his wife. This is not like those stories that plunge headlong into unrelieved tragedy, that would cry out, “From that day on, his face never again knew laughter.” Instead, it feels more real, more shattering. No one’s life is truly composed of nothing but misfortune, with no moment of joy. Human beings are stubbornly resilient creatures. Even when time cannot fully erase the scars on the heart, most of the time we still choose to keep living. Having lost a son, and then a daughter as well, you would expect Fugui and Jiazhen — the white-haired burying the black-haired — to be crushed beyond recovery. Yet Zhang Yimou does not show us that. He shows us the old couple bringing their son-in-law and grandson to visit the graves, sharing a meal, commenting that Professor Wang now eats only rice and not noodles — but rice is more expensive than noodles. You wonder: how can they speak so casually, so lightly, about the man who failed to save their daughter? But perhaps that is exactly how it is. Because there is a grandson, still innocently asking innocent questions. Because there is a dutiful son-in-law. Because the old couple still have each other to lean on. Sustained by these small, fragile threads of warmth, they carry on — haggling over firewood, rice, cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. To live — that is all it is.
To those who say it does not truly capture what “to live” means, I reply: to my eyes, this film is the perfect embodiment of those two words.
Chief Niu says: fire those three cannons at Taiwan — one onto Chiang Kai-shek’s bed, one onto his dining table, one onto his latrine — so he cannot sleep, cannot eat, cannot shit, and Taiwan will be recovered. Sleeping, eating, shitting — whoever you are, to live is nothing more than this. None of us are the protagonists of that soul-stirring opera Farewell My Concubine. Most of us cannot change the times. Most of us haggle over trivialities — firewood and rice — yet we can still find happiness in small things, and bring happiness to those around us. Most of us are this humble, and yet this tenaciously alive.