The grave side

China's most commercially successful filmmaker has placed a high stake on a new work that has none of the trappings of his previous hits. Raymond Zhou reviews.

Feng Xiaogang, who's renowned for his year-end urban comedies, now has on offer a historical saga so tragic that tears run dry before the movie reaches a midpoint, at least for the characters. This comes in a season that was singlehandedly created by him to be mindlessly jovial — one that escapes from the heavy themes in life.

I have always suspected that, buried deep inside the comedic facade of this movie populist, is someone who not only strives for depth but also ponders some of the most puzzling philosophical questions that plague the country, such as why bad things keep happening to China. The superstar director has done a very good job hiding his gravitas — until now.

Long-neglected episode

Back to 1942 is about the famine that affected 30 million people in Henan province in the title year, killing one-tenth of the population. The natural disaster caused by locusts and drought was exacerbated by the imminent invasion of the Japanese army and something more.

The snaking and grinding multitude of emaciated figures is only half the sad story. The bigger tragedy is the unwillingness to help. The neighboring province blocks fleeing refugees at gunpoint. Japanese invaders bomb them as they are mingled with retreating Chinese soldiers. The national army, instead of offering humanitarian assistance, imposes a levy of grains on an already-starving population — in the name of protecting them from invaders.

Screenwriter Liu Zhenyun and director Feng deliver excruciating scenes of human suffering, but most eye-popping is the depiction of behind-the-scenes manipulation by politicians, who place their own interests above the survival of ordinary people.

On the surface, nobody in the bureaucracy is a bad person: The governor of the province is constantly despondent over the fate of his people, and Chiang Kai-shek, the top leader, is aloof yet not exactly uncaring.

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