Change is a part of life and growing up happens. It happens even in the face of traditions and, at times, it can be very rapid. Writer and director Huo Meng’s Living the Land, which had its World Premiere at Berlinale, is a languid meditation set in 1991 in a small rural village in China as it and the people in it are changed by the socio-economic changes of the county at large. The film centers on Chuang (played by Wang Shang), a young boy who is living with relatives because the rest of his family went to the city to seek work.
Huo Meng’s film, despite being a scripted period piece, more often than not feels like he is just capturing moments of real people’s life as they navigate these changes. The way the characters, or the camera, move through the scenes, allows conversations to ebb and flow with natural rhythms and feel captured rather than staged, and speaks to the naturalism of the film. It’s also why the treatment of the Chuang’s cousin, who is not neurotypical and is constantly getting beaten by his parents and abused by other kids, becomes more and more uncomfortable to watch as the film progresses.
The film begins with preparations for attending a funeral. The actual funeral procession is met with lots of little firecrackers. Later in the film, there is a wedding, and once again, there are firecrackers, creating a symmetry linking weddings to funerals. The audience is aware that the bride does not want to get married, so while it is not an actual funeral, it is in the sense that she is being forced into something she does not wish.
The film lays out a series of events and lets you make your own conclusions, it neither advocates for nor against tradition. Huo Meng paints both in a negative light, as the aforementioned traditional wedding is not a happy occurrence and later the bride wishes she could get a divorce but is discouraged by her family, however, later there is a scene where they are making modern explosions (like the firecrackers) to reach oil in the town, resulting in a tragedy for the family. There is also a sequence where all the women are required to get checked for their childbearing capabilities, and bring their family planning material – as this was related to what people now commonly refer to as the “one-child policy.” The character shown is made to feel uncomfortable and sad, and the character shown to be very negatively affected by the whole experience. And yet, the film’s final moments have the family embracing and enjoying getting a tractor with the promise that it will ease their work in the future.
The film is slow, it doesn’t rush the story or its characters, its plot is more about the progression of the seasons and how they change the land and the people (the family) working it, and in this there are many rich moments captured. Even though at one point Chuang refers to their village as poor and them as the poorest people in their poor village, there are many beautiful shots of the land. However, it is the low shots from Chuang’s POV and those from his dreams that stood out and made me take notice while I was viewing the film.
Living the Land had its World Premiere at the 75th annual Berlin International Film Festival in the Main Competition.
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