La Terre jaune

Not far from the yellow river there is a big area where the earth also is yellow and the climate and living are very harsh, this time because of a drought. First we see a wedding ceremony with the bride little more than 12 years old, a happy occasion for everyone except for the skeptical onlooking Cuiqiao whose fate will be similar in short time and the bride herself. Enter folk song collector comrade Gu who stays with her family for some time. His talk of whats going on in the south, the end of arranged weddings and equality of women sets a deep impression on Cuiqiao, but also her mute brother.

Much of the film is told in its folk songs and its pictures. Cuiqiaos misery is told with songs: "of all the people//girls are the most miserable" and her new hope with the songs of the Party.

The pictures leave much room for the environments to sink in. Distances are big and the landscape homogeneous, that is earth covered mountains and a wide yellow river. In a setting such as this, the figures get small, and even more so by the devotion Zhang Yimou gives to the vast sky.

In this handsome but dramatically subdued portrait of life in the harsh, mountainous hinterland of mainland China a plucky young bureaucrat, collecting folk songs for the communist army, befriends a penniless widower and his children, before learning to his horror that the winsome teenage daughter is to be sold against her will into marriage with an elderly local farmer. Director Kaige Chen shows a photographer's eye for visual composition and symmetry, but the narrative structure of his film is almost non-existent. This is storytelling completely uninfluenced by Western techniques and standards, unfolding for the most part through imagery and song. Whether the result is a refreshing change of pace or an exercise in tedium will depend entire on the viewer's attitude toward classic Third World cinema.

This movie is, to say the very least, a work of art. No other movie has ever evoked such emotional tears from my eyes as Yellow Earth. From the foreshadowing wedding ceremony, to the repetition in Cuigiao's own wedding, from distant silhouettes, to the ominous slow motion running of Hanhan during the ceremonial rain dance at the end, I have never felt the extent of sympathy for characters in a film as I have during and after viewing Yellow Earth. The folk songs reiterated the intensity of the sorrow through their text and solemn melodies. Ch'en Kaige beautifully crafted this film, bringing a little understanding of the plight of traditional China, and the revolutionary attempt to better their situation.

This film is Chen Kaige's masterpiece. Although he would eventually direct the more financially successful Devil on the Doorstep (another great Kaige film), this one packs more emotional wallop. The cinematography is very impressive, and led to the emergence of Zhang Yimou as China's greatest filmmaker of all time in the later 80s and all of the 90. A picture is worth a thousand words, and this film shows why. The story unfolds because of images, not because of dialogue.

The only other films of great note before this one, that showed the effects of poverty in China were Spring in a Small Village and San Mao (Three Hairs). Most other Chinese films were filled with excessive CCP dialogue extolling the virtues of socialism. It is much better to show it than to speak it.

Gu Quing plays the CCP soldier who works as a propagandist for village folk song research, and Ba Xue plays the young girl, who is sold into indentured slavery by ancient Chinese cultural traditions. The soldier affects both her and her younger brother. I will not reveal the outcome of these relationships, as it would spoil your enjoyment of the film. One of the best 150 Chinese films ever made, and probably in the top ten.

Gu Quing - The Soldier(as Xueyin Wang) Bai Xue - The Young Farmgirl.

Yellow Earth is a classic film, which reflects that the situation of peasant's life is in yellow earth. At the beginning of the film, with a folk, the screen shows audience the background of this movie, which is a soldier came to yellow earth for collecting folk. With the development of story, the viewer can find that the situation of local environment is poor and austere, their thought is conservative and antiquated, and local people is humane and ignorance. However, through the soldier's describing, you can make comparison between yellow earth and the South in thought, education and so on. Although these traditional rules and culture were the same before many years ago, with the development and changing of society, China was changing. However, local people still live in the primitive China, their life is poor, cannot get education and keep the old traditional custom.

In Yellow Earth, there are some details reflecting thought of Confucian. The girls must obey parents' order and have matchmaker making match, which is the traditional thought for marriage. For example, when the soldier told them that girls can own choose husband and marriage by themselves in South now and people claim loving in freedom, Cui Qiao's father cannot accept this thought. He still thinks that daughter's marriage need traditional rules. If not, he thinks that it is not good for the girl. It not only reflects that thought of Confucian, but also shows that local people' thought is antiquated, adamant and old- fashioned. In the film, although Cui Qiao's father knows that Cui Qiao is not willing to marriage, he cannot change mind and persuade Cui Qiao agree. Except for this, When the soldier asks Cui Qiao's father about his daughter's marriage, the man told him that couple do not need premarital feeling, which means they do not need love each other. This action and thought is like in the antiquity. At the antiquity, girls do not know who will be her husband and what his appearance is. And Cui Qiao's father says this marriage was confirmed when Cui Qiao was a child, which is another traditional culture.

Second, in the film, it reflects that the position of women is low and the position between man and woman is not the balance. Girls cannot choose husband and have liberal love. Except for this, generally, the man can be older than girl and the differential of age is big. Like Cui Qiao and her husband. The reason why Cui Qiao will marry with her husband is when she was a child, her home is poor, and, for his brother, her father agree this marriage. In the local place, it is the common phenomenon. However, this kind of marriage is cruel and cannot be accept for girls. In the film, the bride does not have smile including not only Cui Qiao but also the bride is at the beginning of the film. For marriage, girls are not satisfied but they have to accept for their family and themselves. At yellow earth, girls have only one way that is marriage. However, only one way is that they cannot decide and choose by themselves, which is dolorous.

Third, it is conflicted for local people to see yellow earth. In the film, a shot is Cui Qiao' father stand on yellow earth, he looks at sky and feel helpless, sad, because there is no rain for a long time. He told the soldier that no one want to farm in yellow earth because this sod is not suitable to farm, but they cannot give up yellow earth because they depend on this sod to live. This is a conflicted emotion. Local people know the problem of sod but they think this sod feed them, so they cannot give up yellow earth. And, Cui Qiao has the same conflicted emotion. She cannot accept her marriage but she cannot oppose for her brother and father, which reflects that she is a humane and dutiful daughter.

Except for these, through film, I find that local people have not good education at that place, so it causes that they are unknown and thought is antiquated. When the soldier wants to write a couplet, Cui Qiao refuses him because no one knows words. They cannot get education, it caused that their thought is antiquated and do not want to know new information and rules. They still keep to tradition. And in the film, there a lot of time having no dialogue. Local people are silence. They do not talk with others, only when they meet difficulty, they can sing a folk to say about the difficulty of their life. At the end of film, Cui Qiao wants to change her life, she try her best to find the new way. She wants to get freedom. So, she leaves her home, cut her hair and find to the Red Army by herself. It means the girl aspire to freedom.

Thus, I think that this film – Yellow earth is good film. It lets the viewer know that farmers' life in yellow earth at that time and a traditional custom.