Set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1970’s, this film follows 15 year-old Xiu Xiu as she leaves her home and family to study horses in the rural countryside. The film is, very obviously, criticizing the entire principle of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s failed attempts to “reeducate” the youth through labor and rural isolation. Xiu Xiu is, at the beginning of the film, enthusiastic to be part of the movement and incredibly devoted to her country, but, once she is removed from the propaganda and waving red flags, she loses touch with Mao’s grand vision. Once she is away from civilization and wallowing in boredom, even as a viewer, we forget that there is a political purpose for her suffering. Xiu Xiu is not reeducated or empowered by her experience in the countryside, but she instead becomes utterly disempowered, desperate, and miserable. The film eventually becomes about her complete loss of innocence and pride, as she begins whoring herself out to all the men who give her a promise for a return to her home in Chengdu. The poor treatment of Xiu Xiu reiterates the fact that Mao’s utopian vision was never really possible—humans are still, in Joan Chen’s view, innately selfish. It is powerful to consider that Xiu Xiu is ultimately punished for being a bright-eyed nationalist, not for being insubordinate, but for merely following the calling of her country’s leader. The film is a rich commentary on this tumultuous moment in Chinese history, where so many of the youth lost the opportunity to go to college and develop freely, all for the purpose of a failed political policy.
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