The end of the year is often a season for comedy movies. But famous film directors have the confidence to win the audience over with the stories they'd like to tell on screen, rather than simply pander to the public mood. Last year, The Flowers of War directed by Zhang Yimou was released among several year-end comedies. This year, it was 1942, a movie about an equally painful part of history, the Henan famine of 1942 in which as many as 3 million people died. The film was made by Feng Xiaogang, a director famous for his series of year-end comedies.
I watched both movies in cinema. And I instinctively flinched while watching both movies. In The Flowers of War, the frenzied chase after young students by Japanese soldiers in a church was a nightmare. And in 1942, the whirling bombs that Japanese planes deploy against throngs of fleeing Chinese refuges, together with the horrific sound effects, are almost a visual assault against audience.
It is certainly necessary that history is remembered, mirrored and reflected upon in art works, including films. It is a trend that an increasing number of Chinese films is using 1930s and 1940s as a macro background. However, the nation's scars are so deep that such movies often have too many strong sentiments and bitter memories.
Take the Japanese invasion. Some critics said The Flowers of War was a cheap spree of anti-Japanese sentiments. While such a comment is a bit extreme, more moviegoers commented that their repugnance toward Japan was boosted after they saw the movie. In 1942, which focuses on the dereliction of the Kuomintang government during famine in Northern China, also briefly depicted the Japanese army in a few bloody scenes.
A few critics held that these directors invited audience to consume national disasters while eating popcorn, and profited through painful memories. A friend said he didn't even finish watching 1942 before he stood up and left the theater. He thought the topic was too painful, and he couldn't understand what values the director wanted to present.
I do not doubt these directors' motives in making such films. However, many Chinese filmmakers instinctively look at and depict history with strong sentiments, which to a certain extent mirrors the heavy historic burden that the Chinese cannot put down.
It's hard to simply judge if this is a good thing or not. It is just a fact that the nation suffered too much historical pain and such pain is still haunting people, including social elite. In regard to the history of Japanese invasion, the historic reconciliation is still quite remote. The pain is still vivid every time when people look back into that part of history, and the more we look back, the stronger sentiments we might have. This also partly explains why City of Life and Death, which provided a different narrative from the perspective of a Japanese soldier during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, could not be accepted by many Chinese viewers.
Chinese film critics often envy Western works like Schindler's List, saying that movies on historic tragedies should surpass national sentiments and reflect upon history from the perspective of humanity. But a calm attitude toward the past demands many conditions, and one important one is that the basic historical facts are clear and transparent, allowing all kinds of interpretations to clash with each other and leaving space for individual judgment.
Chinese still have too many confusions and doubts toward history. Take the Japanese invasion again. The spat over what was happening back then is still going on today, and there is no way that strong emotions could be abandoned in Chinese films.
I remember in the end, the movie quoted an old lady who experienced the famine: "I almost forgot those vexing things, why do you want to bring it up again?" It's sad to hear this. The past is so miserable that some choose to forget.
Perhaps every nation with a heavy history has to experience the stage of examining the scars under a magnifying glance.
That's painful, but forcibly forgetting is not the best way to get over history.