Chinese cinema has long been filled with epic narratives spanning decades to chronicle the country’s evolving fortunes. However, Huo Meng’s Living the Land, selected in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, accomplishes this within a single year. Through a deeply human lens, it follows an impoverished farming family in Henan province in 1991, capturing the anguish and uncertainty gripping rural China as it stands on the brink of economic transformation.
Huo’s second feature, a significant leap from his 2018 road movie Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan, is visually striking and masterfully composed. Featuring non-professional actors who deliver remarkably affecting performances, the film immerses viewers in a world where electricity is scarce, tractors are rare, and survival often depends on making bricks in rudimentary kilns or selling blood for money.
At the center of the story is Chuang (Wang Shang), a young boy living with his mother’s extended family. He belongs to the first generation of China’s “left behind children,” whose parents have migrated to cities for factory work. Through his eyes, the audience experiences the hardships of rural life across generations—his great-grandmother (Zhang Yanrong) bears the scars of a painful past, while his young aunt (Zhang Chuwen) struggles with crushed aspirations.
While glimpses of broader societal change appear, such as villagers watching Migrant Working Girls on a communal TV and Chuang’s uncles leaving for Shenzhen, the film focuses on those who stayed behind. It serves as an ode to the resilience of forgotten farmers navigating their mundane yet profound realities.
Huo’s meticulous attention to local customs, rituals, and seasonal changes lends the film an almost anthropological depth. His precise re-creation of rural traditions is flawlessly executed, offering an authentic glimpse into a long-vanished agrarian society.
Framed by two contrasting funerals and interwoven with moments of separation, marriage, and birth, Living the Land is a journey through the natural cycles of human existence. Life in the village, despite its struggles, continues. The film’s quiet yet powerful storytelling resonates as a tribute to those who endured, reminding viewers that even in hardship, life must go on.
READ MORE: