Zhang Yimou is a wonderful, Chinese director whose films I especially love. He shoots his films with such depth, in his atmosphere and style. Starting to watch any story of this director, you need to prepare for something unpredictable and very interesting.
This is Zhang Yimou's 1992 drama. The film tells the story of an ordinary, rural, pregnant woman. Her husband was brutally beaten by a village headman and now he can't work. In turn, the mayor does not want to apologize. An offended wife named Qiu Ju collects a wagon and goes to the city to file a complaint against the headman of the village.
The film is made qualitatively and with a fine line between drama and comedy. There is not a single note of falsehood in the picture, and everything looks believable and convincing. The main role is played by the incomparable Gong Li. She's an amazing actress and she's always a pleasure to watch. In this film, Lee plays a distant role from her image and the heroines she always plays. Gong Lee plays a village, dark woman who doesn’t know the laws, but believes there must be justice somewhere.
This is a story of young people fighting for their rights and respect. The heroine of Qiu Ju is still a tough nut, and she is a man with great dignity, because any other person gave up at the first opportunity, but not Qiu Ju, she was firmly pursuing her goal. As always, there is a touch of irony in Zhang Yimou's stories, and the ending of the film will be unexpected.
Qiu Ju goes to court is a feature film with a taste of drama and irony Zhang Yimou. The film turned out to be strong and life-affirming. I love this movie and I certainly appreciate it. This is a story about justice and dignity, about a small man and a system.
It's a beautiful movie. Thank you.
“Qiu Ju Goes to Court” is Yimou’s fourth film, first filmed in a documentary manner. Detailed everyday realism, no stranger to comic color in the recreation of bureaucratic absurdity, resembles the ribbons of the Dardennes brothers rather than the epic tragic canvases of this Chinese master. Having minimized the audiovisual component of the film (folk songs sounding in the tape are more likely to confuse the viewer than help him get used to the story, which may have been thought out by the director), Imou completely focuses our attention on the narrative of a strange litigation between good people who fell into the quagmire of bureaucratic idiocy.
Unlike his other paintings, Yimou does not choose any particular social target, even bureaucracy looks more amusing than monstrous. In an effort to create a comedy about people from the outback, the director largely unconsciously reconstructs the main dramatic conflict of Mikhalkov’s Rodni, with the only difference that Chinese villagers are depicted more caricatured than their Russian counterparts.
Gong Lee performs a phenomenal for herself acting reincarnation: often playing the roles of subtile submissive women experiencing the drama of discrimination within herself, she was forced to limit her creative potential. Here, the heroine of Gong Li is diametrically opposite to the victim role of the actress: combative and stubborn she strives for justice, hardly understanding its meaning.
A strong plot move is the help in childbirth from the side of the one against whom she has been fighting for so long. The final heap of absurd accidents looks almost Kafkaesque ridicule of power structures: in the midst of the holiday, the enemy, who has become a friend, still falls into long-arranged networks. Imou’s tape is not directed against anyone in particular, not even against the authorities, it is rather a reflection on existential discrepancies, on the ambivalence of the moral image of a person, when bulldozer love of truth can lead to a tragic outcome, and awkwardness and squabbling hide the breadth of the soul and unselfishness behind it.
Striving to avoid the Pharisaic condemnation of his characters, Imou in this picture shows himself a very wise man who perceives life without ideological stereotypes, widely and in all its diversity. Like Fellini, Imou is vital, imbued with trust in the world and love for people, but unlike his Italian counterpart, he is not a metaphysician, but rather a historiographer. Like Visconti. But Yimou’s talent is not infected with the decadent hopelessness of the director of Death in Venice, because his work is so humane and optimistic, which is evidenced by the painting “Qiu Ju goes to court”, a tragicomedy about the absurdities of fate.
Zhang Yimou is the first Chinese director to gain worldwide fame. Chinese cinema has long been brewed in its own juice. It is clear that the rule of Mao could not have had a positive impact on the cinematography. The Cultural Revolution and everything. Zhang Yimou also suffered during these times. In 1979, Zhang Yimou was almost 30 years old. I didn’t go to film school at that age. But the future famous author managed to reach out to the decision-makers, to inform them that he could not act sooner, because he was expelled. Zhang Yimou gained fame very quickly, even with his first film “Red Gaolian”. He regularly went to the most prestigious film festivals and received prizes there. But gradually the director turned into a kind of Chinese Nikita Mikhalkov. He took steps from small films to big-budget movies. His themes were mostly events in Chinese history. Zhang Yimou became the main Chinese official director. The authorities support him, it is no coincidence that he was tasked with working on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Gong Li is one of the most famous Chinese actresses. She was the muse and lover of Zhang Yimou, starred in almost all of his first films. But then they parted ways. Interestingly, in her youth, Gong Li was often said to look like a popular Japanese actress and singer. And the young Chinese woman didn't like it, she wanted others to be compared to her. And Gong Li got her way. It is very popular in Asia, works with varying success in Hollywood.
Two super successful careers. They've accomplished a lot... But I think their best paintings were made in the early 90s. “Qu Ju Goes to Court,” “Raise the Red Lantern.” This is something real, powerful...
Qiu Ju Goes to Court tells the story of a young peasant woman seeking justice. In the role of this peasant, wrapped, rewound into some rags, and starred Li Gong. It is amazing how such a beautiful, sophisticated young lady played a simple village woman so convincingly. The atmosphere of the film is impressive. Rural life in Europe, America and Russia has largely lost its national identity. It affects the movies. Back in the 60s, Shukshin could shoot about a Russian village and do it cool. Create a hero who goes to the city, enters another world and speaks, acts with a specific color. Color, not stupidity and blinkeredness, as it is now.
What is most impressive is how Zhang Yimou portrays the Chinese village and the psychology of the people there. Civilization still little affected the province of China in the early 90s. No cars, no TVs. The bicycle was considered a luxury. It is interesting to see how a simple peasant woman understands the role of power and the court. It is also entertaining to watch a big bureaucratic communist machinah respond to these attempts by the heroine Gong Li to seek justice. Cool Zhang Yimou wove the plot, showing us the essence of the relationship between the ordinary person and state institutions. It would seem, after Mao, what kind of struggle for rights can we talk about? But no. The desire for justice is indestructible.
There's no justice in the world. A village headman beat up the husband of a pregnant Qu Ju, and instead of apologizing, chased the poor woman from the doorstep. Then Qiu Ju went to look for the truth from the administration, but she only appointed her husband a compensation 200 yuan, which the headman arrogantly threw at her feet. Qiu Ju continues to knock on all doors, but everywhere he gets the same answer. No one can force the elder to publicly admit guilt. Believing that all power covers the official, so that he did not “lost face”, the peasant goes to court.
The film, for which Zhang Yimou received the Golden Lion, literally resembles a folk tale that could have arisen in the village environment in the XX century, when no one believes in magic, but the fabulous structure of preserving stories in the people’s memory remains. "Innocently Persecuted" Qiu Jiu goes through all the circles of bureaucratic hell, going as if to an unknown kingdom. It travels through the province at the expense of harvested and dried pepper, which it sells in the market, and which tends to run out. Once Qu Ju sells her last bundle, she won’t have the resources to fight. Pepper hangs Yimou's house Qu Ju, while the headman's housing is hung with corn. Anyone passing by will be able to determine who in the village is the richest in such a bin. And so not rich Qiu Ju poor, and the headman's house blooms pale yellow. Finally, on the road, the heroine always takes a small faithful assistant, the sister of her husband Mei Ji, who helps Qiu Ju not to lose courage in any troubles.
Indeed, one could well prove that Zhang Yimou’s film is morphologically a fairy tale, and this gives him a significant advantage. Despite the fact that the picture is shot realistically and without specially prepared scenes, often with a hidden camera, the very structure of the script evokes associations with the stories we heard in childhood, and therefore the screen catches on to itself, and Qiu Ju’s walks are so interesting to watch. This is confirmed by the presence of the literary basis of the script – Chen Yuanbing’s novel “The Wan Family Litigation”. Much later, the director will completely turn to the spectacular form of the epic and shoot “Hero”, “The House of Flying Daggers” and “The Curse of the Golden Flower”, but the social sharpness of these paintings will be significantly less.
In Qiu Ju Goes to Court, Zhang Yimou glorifies the village and the village way of life, as well as the naive and honest people who work hard. Unsophisticated in Qiu Ju’s law, it is difficult to understand that no court can make a person feel guilty, and that financial compensation is the most she can count on until new circumstances of the case that threaten to change the article and preventive measures are clarified. Qiu Ju craves supreme justice, remorse, in which the court is incompetent. Thus, unknowingly, it exposes the most acute problem of justice, its nature. What is the cost of all the money and time when the criminal thinks he is right? How many people corrected their imprisonment? And how can we be sure that the abuser will be punished rather than using corrupt ties? Is justice the same for everyone? And why, after all, does anyone think that his status can allow him to kick another person with his feet?
“The Story of Qiu Ju” is the story of how a poor peasant woman began to stand up for human rights in a country where people are traditionally considered to have no rights. But the point, Yimou says, is not the state, but the people who make up the state. Something like this could happen anywhere. The mechanism of judicial proceedings is so imperfect and insensitive to the needs and desires of people that the hour is not equal, you may regret that you launched it.
A peasant had a quarrel with the headman. The first rather rudely passed in relation to the daughters of a respected person, for which the second gave a heartfelt blow, breaking the okharnik's rib and damaging something else, without which the peasant quite possibly will not shine in the future, neither daughters nor sons. Qiu Ju, the pregnant wife of the victim, decided that her rights should be defended - no one gave the headman the right to kick a person - and went to complain in the district. In the district committee, the complaint was accepted and the elder was awarded compensation to the victim. The headman agreed to compensation, but in order not to lose face, he not only gave the money, but threw it in front of the pregnant Qiu Ju on the ground. Like, you bow to me twenty more times while you pick up the papers, and we're even. But it is not so much that Qiu Ju needs this money, how much so that the headman admits his wrongness and apologizes. So she goes to the county first, then to the city. . .
History is well known to many, but what is there – we can say, global. And in this regard, we will not learn anything new. Qiu Ju goes with complaints, the headman can only quietly swear, and laugh at the new failures of the neighbor, and the husband’s persistence of the wife only annoys, because in the village they are already laughed at, and if he goes on like this, they will be known with Qiu Ju as “squalls” and “squalls”. However, using this simple story, the director tells not so much about the misadventures of a pregnant peasant woman, but shows the life of the poor areas of modern China. In the film, there are many shots with a hidden camera: in markets, in catering, near train stations, on the streets. Almost from the very beginning, Yimou makes it clear that Qiu’s story is by no means out of the ordinary: when the heroine first comes with a complaint in the district, there is already a trial on a similar occasion: also a fight. Or the very beginning of the film, when the camera seems to accidentally snatch from the crowd two women (Qu Ju and her sister) pushing the cart.
The film “Qiu Ju Goes to Court” is rather a program film for Chinese director Zhang Yimou. Such films are at almost every festival, they receive their awards, and after a year the viewer usually forgets about them. There are no outstanding acting works - everything is filmed with deliberate simplicity, almost in a documentary manner. There is almost no action that would hold the audience’s attention for an hour and a half. However, it should be noted that this film has a rather caustic ending: Qiu Ju never got what she wanted, but her constant complaints set off the state machine, which decided everything in its own way. Human laws are imperfect, they are like an alien organism – if the plaintiff is not satisfied with one solution, the state will “propose” another option, even less satisfying the desires of the truth-seeker, and try to prove that you did not want this at all.
5 out of 10