Video Review
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl
Directed by Joan Chen
1999
reviewed by MC45

So would it make this review a spoiler if we just say up front that this
movie is awful and readers should plunk their change elsewhere? If you
don't care about history and you just want a compelling story, this is not
the film for you. If you don't care about history or a compelling story
but enjoy watching increasingly brutal rape scenes with a beautiful
landscape as backdrop, you just might enjoy Xiu Xiu. You may also be
enticed to learn that the film has been marketed as a "love story."

Set during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), Xiu Xiu is
the fictional story (based on a novel) of a young student from Chengdu who
is sent to the countryside. Chen's directorial debut opens with text
describing the purpose of sending educated youth to the countryside. The
description is correct: it cites contradictions between rural and urban
Chinese, and the fact that the success of this exchange in resolving the
contradictions would be evidence of the successes of socialism.
Unfortunately the rest of the film ignores politics in favor of the
individual drama of Xiu Xiu's life away from her home and family.

"Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl" is a parade of young students obsessed with
romance in Chengdu, lecherous party officials in the countryside, simple
long-suffering country folk, and Xiu Xiu herself -- the perfectly passive
womyn. Some young students during the GPCR may have been obsessed with
romance, but this does not make it a relevant commentary on their work in
the GPCR. Some party officials may have used their positions to get sex, a
work about the Cultural Revolution should present at minimum the fact that
this movement was launched to oppose the use of party membership to gain
privilege.

Peasants formed the backbone of the Chinese revolution and Mao taught that
their work in agriculture was the basis of the Chinese economy; without
agriculture no Chinese would eat. Similarly, Mao and his party recognized
that "women hold up half of heaven," and made bringing wimmin into
political leadership positions and the professions a priority. Chen's
disingenuous ignorance of the two basic facets of the revolution is in
a way her film's only redeeming feature. Xiu Xiu's urbanity is almost
farcical. We never see her work in her time in the countryside. We never
see her prepare a meal; although, we do see her pestering her peasant
companion Lao Jin to prepare meals for her. We see her sulk until Lao Jin
rides ten li to bring her fresh water to bathe in, and then watch her piss
and moan when there is no water to drink in their tent.

MIM has written that "Mao opposed Western-style education because of its
use in creating and justifying the existence of self-interested classes
that don't necessarily serve the public." Such education helped to form
the contradictions between city and countryside, and between mental and
manual labor. While Xiu Xiu exemplifies these countradictions, the film
reduces them to a matter of interpersonal tension.

Note: For accurate information on the Cultural Revolution, order a copy of
What is the Maoist Internationalist Movement? available from MIM for $2.
We also distribue these books and others on the GPCR: E.L. Wheelwright &
Bruce McFarlane's The Chinese Road to Socialism: Economics of the Cultural
Revolution; History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Jean Daubier;
and Turning Point in China by William Hinton.