I couldn't stop thinking about this movie for a long time after watching it. The sparseness of it haunted me- the plot, the dialogue, the land. The film shows you what it looks like to literally eke out a living. Life for the peasants of Shaanbei is about survival in its most primal sense- staving off hunger. Children exist solely to provide labor and as a form of currency, to be traded to other families through marriage. The peasants' existence is so stark that there is almost no need for language. The family rarely speaks to each other. However, though little is said, much is felt. The peasants express their laments through songs, the only way they know how. Yet, though songs can liberate Cuiqiao's feelings, they ultimately cannot free her from her bondage, as she notes in her last song. And, as the ceremonial rain ritual at the end reminds us, no one in the village can free themselves from their bondage to the earth. The vast, dry, timeless landscape dominates the frame in many shots; the people are helpless before it, as they have been since time immemorial. The earth is what drives them to look up toward heaven, as they do at the end of the film. An alternative direction is Communism, symbolized by Gu Qing standing on the horizon, whom Hanhan struggles toward against the current of the masses. Yet Gu Qing's figure disappears before Hanhan could get to him, and the camera ultimately points down and settles its view on the yellow earth. The power of the film owes much to its economical editing. On Cuiqiao's wedding day, we never see her getting onto the sedan chair, only her father picking up the empty straw seat Ciuqiao used to sit on after the wedding procession leaves. In her bridal chamber, we see the dark, arthritic hands of Cuiqiao's groom but never his face. The effect is all the more chilling and poignant.
Review of Yellow Earth
