"Not One Less"

Zhang Yimou's Not One Less is, for the most part, a significant departure from his previous works like Red Sorghum and Ju Dou in that in place of his traditional epic narrative, Not One Less is a rather untheatrical story. The ride that is the movie is mostly smooth with only one major bump along the way.

From the beginning, the peasants are not treated in the typical communist social reality that was previously portrayed in every movie. The town was in disrepair and the people were laboring under misfortunate circumstances. The teacher, called away by his obligation to his sick mother, was forced to take on a substitute of obviously inferior quality. Her bleak résumé was only coupled with knowledge of a song about Mao, one that she had forgotten much of. This is reflective of not only the abysmal quality of education in post-Mao China, but also of the growing disparity between rural and urban China due to the unequal distribution of growing economic prosperity.

Midway through this movie, one realizes that the typical Fifth Generation scenes, which primarily focus on the beautiful scenery of the Chinese countryside rather than the characters, is only halfway diminished in scope. Rather than the yawn-inducing, long scenes of green hillsides and clear lakes (or not so clear!), the people are actually visibly apparent. This is a shift away from the overly-long ‘artistic' scenes in favor for a more personal and emotional image. It also reduced the length of the movie dramatically, from the emotionally-draining three-hour-long Farewell My Concubine by Chen Kaige to a much more enjoyable hour-and-a-half.

The trip to the city, however, proves to be a much different experience altogether. Rather than the hum-drum of daily life in the Chinese countryside, the city is bustling with noise and life, something which is rather alien to the poor substitute from the village. Considering she is barely a teenager and is traveling alone, this provokes a transformation from the petulant, puerile girl she was before into a stronger, more driven individual. Once she is given a purpose, that of keeping the class size to its original count, she seems to mature rather rapidly. This, coupled with the dramatic scene at the television station, radically alters the feel of the movie from uneventful to meaningful.

As a closing point, I would like to retouch upon my previous statement of Not One Less as a departure from the norm of the Chinese epic. In this movie, no one dies, no one kills themselves, there are no wars (on the physical plane), and there is little propaganda. In fact, there is even quite a happy ending, something which was a rarity in Chinese films. While it may not be a complete turnaround in nature, Not One Less can certainly be considered to be a revolutionary film in its divergence.