Growing Up in Battle [PRC 1957]

战斗里成長
Directors: Yan J., Sun M.
Cinematographer: Jiang S.

Taking place in the period of the revolutionary war, this film tells the story of a young peasant boy and his motivations for joining the PLA's Eighth Route Army. Stylistically it is a mixed bag, but not particularly innovative. In its plot and content it shares some similarities with I Am Cuba and The Brigadista, but there are also some striking differences.

First, the similarities. As in I Am Cuba, the story begins with the loss of land by a smallholding peasant to the local landlord through the abuse of the law; here it is achieved because the courts are corrupt and only respond to those with money. As in that film, here the response of one peasant is to burn down buildings in an act of apparent madness--though here they are the buildings of the landlord, the similarity is that in this case as well he does it without an apparent thought for the consequences. His father, another peasant, commits suicide, which is an implied result of the actions in I Am Cuba as well. There is also a sequence in which the peasant who burns down the buildings later reminisces about all the injustices that have led him to the point at which he stands; this is similar to the sequence in the other film. Finally, it is the death of a loved one that drives the man to join the rebels, and the apparent death of one family member and severe misfortune of another that drives his son to do the same. All these represent perhaps common themes in initial motivations for peasants to join revolutions, so perhaps it is not surprising that they are echoed in both films.

There are also some similarities with The Brigadista. These have mainly to do with the main character, who is a young man. In both films, the young male protagonist who has volunteered for service wants badly to fight the enemy even though he has been told that he must remain at his post for the greater good. Both show a youthful enthusiasm and desire to fight conflicting with the older, more disciplined rebels who teach patience and restraint.

But here the similarities perhaps end. For there is a striking, and perhaps telling, contrast between these films. That is the focus on revenge. Revenge plays a strong role throughout the film, and is certainly not cast in a particularly negative light. It is the main motivation of the father for joining the PLA (to avenge his father), and it is the main motivation of the son for the same. It is revenge which the son wants when he wants to fight and is being told to follow orders. It is true that in the end, unbridled desire for revenge is castigated, but only in favour of the realisation that the best way to get revenge is through a co-operative effort, through the Party. And at the end of the film it is suggested that since the Party has helped people get revenge, they should then help the Party--and that there cannot be a good day until all the reactionaries have been destroyed. Thus there is an intimate link here between the concept of individual revenge against past injustice and the revolution.

There is one scene in particular, however, that makes this into something more than just a petty, empty concept of revenge. A local landlord has been finally captured by rebels after years of cruelly abusing the people. A woman he has abused goes to see him tied up and collapses in tears. Her old mother tells her she must hit him in the face, but she cannot seem to muster the courage or the strength. Her mother seems to be trying to get her to break down the psychological barrier that has made her fear this man; so the act of manhandling him becomes a kind of catharsis or a symbolic act to prove that his spell is broken. Then the scene descends back into village mob justice, with a mass of people beating the landlord, an act similar to the wheelbarrow scene in Strike--presumably in the same symbolic act, though less obviously personalised. This scene gives some emotional content to the revenge being spoken about throughout the film, and gives it some sense as a concept connected to recovering self-respect and dignity.

Nevertheless, it must be said that the continual emphasis on revenge is perhaps a dangerous one. It is well known that in revolutionary movements largely comprised of peasants, a major motivation for peasants joining up to fight is to avenge injustices committed both before and during the war. That was undoubtedly true in Cuba as in China and many other places. But the emphasis in The Brigadista and in I Am Cuba is not on this revenge, but on people realising that the greater injustice must be fought for the good of the whole society, of the country, and perhaps the world. In other words, personal motivations are highlighted, but the emphasis is on converting those motivations into fighting for a higher, nobler goal. And perhaps that is one reason why Cuba has avoided the kind of bloodshed associated with social upheavals where people are suddenly able to and encouraged to take revenge upon those who have oppressed them.

I do not doubt that this film may be a more accurate representation of what actually motivated many peasants; but to hold this up as a noble thing seems to me to be a dangerous thing, and perhaps the kind of thing that might have fed into the worst aspects of the Cultural Revolution. The timing of this film perhaps strengthens that suggestion; for in 1957, when Chinese cinema-going was peaking, a film like this, about a heroic young boy and about the war would presumably have been seen by possibly millions of young boys who nine years later, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, would have just come of age. The same generation, that is, as comprised the Red Guards. Obviously this is only one small film, but if it represents any kind of larger cultural pattern then it may suggest that the seeds of the desire for large scale revenge over local historical injustices may have been sown on a mass scale years before the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution.

One also wonders about the motivations for such a depiction, and it does seem that the film is trying to say that the best way a young peasant boy can be heroic is to serve his family; and the best way to serve his family is to serve the revolution. This may be all well and good, and it may fit in with pre-existing cultural values, but it is worth asking about the possible effects of the way in which it is done.

There are some other interesting aspects of the plot of the film. Husband and wife seem to treat each other fairly equally, and when the husband leaves he tells the wife she is 'free'; I am not entirely sure what this is intended to suggest. The PLA is depicted as having fairly democratic operation, with collective meetings in which soldiers speak their mind. And there is an admonition against 'extreme democracy' where that phrase is synonymous with individual soldiers just demanding and doing whatever they want. The PLA are depicted as being completely heroic, even refusing food (with a smile) offered to them on the road by grateful peasants. Food also plays an interesting symbolic role; early in the film, the grandfather's heart is broken because he must tell his grandson that he cannot have anything to eat; and later the boy's mother wishes she could have fed him before he left to join the rebels, much like Veronica's offering of food in The Cranes Are Flying.

Stylistically this film is not exactly eclectic, but it is also not uniform. There are obvious Soviet influences--though apparently 1956-7 was the time in which Chinese filmmakers were starting to branch out from their early Soviet tutelage. Some sequences are echoes of Eisenstein, like an early sequence of peasants announcing a fire. Other shots of columns of guerrillas or terraced terrain and buildings also echo Eisenstein's concern with three-dimensional geometry. Also peppered among the shots are a few shots which have a distinct socialist realist style, for example some shots looking like group portraits or paintings of a group of 'representative' stylised soldiers. But interestingly, and perhaps corresponding to what was happening in the Soviet filmmaking from which China was learning, the use of socialist realist style does not seem to be very strong in this film. Most of the camera work is fairly muted and not particularly interesting, but there are some good sequences and it seems more naturalistic than artificial.

Overall this is an interesting film about the psychology of peasants in the revolutionary period. But it is also interesting because of its portrayal and glorification of peasant mob justice and the avenging by peasants of individual injustices. It may be difficult to weed out how much of this is values being consciously promoted and how much of it is simply attempting to respond to what peasants felt, wanted, and could relate to. But in any case, it makes for an interesting comparison, particularly with Cuba.