One child Nation

Yes, this film makes a clear case for the serious consequences that happen when paternalistic societies fail to value and provide equal rights for women. Whether it's rabid anti-choice proponents in America who clearly feel that individual women should be denied the right to make reproductive decisions for themselves, or Chinese communist authorities who perpetuate the party line to force abortions and sterilization, the losers are always women and all of society. We all need to learn this lesson and this film makes this point in a devastating and personal way.

I began to love the documentary as an art-form much more when I realised that they're less about presenting basic facts, and more about presenting ideas, personal (and often subjective) stories, and visually depicted arguments/opinions. Therefore, I'd never mark a documentary down for being biased, unless perhaps that bias presented a clearly dangerous or insensitive message to its audience.

I say all this because One Child Nation is not aiming to be an "objective" or strictly factual documentary (very few documentaries do, in my opinion, and I believe that's a common misconception which I should nevertheless shut up about now). In just under 90 minutes, director and host/narrator Nanfu Wang provides a succinct and effective history of China's one child policy, before spending most of the documentary interviewing those who lived under and were affected by it. As a result, the documentary does not have a particularly strong through-line, in my opinion, nor a great sense of pacing, as the feeling of going from one subject to another (occasionally linking them effectively) does result in an episodic feel.

There is also a noticeable way in which some of these segments are more interesting than others- One Child Nation is at its most interesting and heartbreaking when Wang focuses in on her family, asking them why they went along with the one child policy and pulling surprisingly few punches. There is also the horrific stories given by an artist who tried to bring attention to the mistreatment of discarded babies through his disturbing photography and artwork. A whole film could have been given to either of these 'segments,' though in the former's case, I could understand how taxing that would be as a filmmaker to interrogate your own family that much, and with the latter, I could see that being too gruesome an angle to spend an entire feature length documentary on.

The lack of flow, solid but not quite incredible conclusion, and occasional repetition are the only slights I have here, and I know I've spent an unfair amount of this review on them. For the most part, this is a very engaging and oftentimes very sad, even hopeless documentary about an entire nation of people being oppressed and manipulated, even to the point where most of the older generations are shown to still believe the one child policy was a good thing. As the documentary goes out of its way to depict, this was not the case, as the sheer number of stories and statistics regarding children being discarded (particularly if a couple had a girl as their only child, as they were seen as less desirable within the culture, being unable to properly 'pass' the family name on) is enough to convince anyone with half a functioning heart that no, this policy was not a decent or ethical one. There are reasons some thought it sensible, but the human cost can't be ignored here, and this documentary succeeded in making me reflect on that, and wonder why I hadn't really thought about the implications of this now retired policy before, despite knowing full well that it had existed.

Good documentaries often provoke and force you to open your eyes and properly think about issues you may not have known existed, or otherwise did not give the time and thought they might have deserved. One Child Nation, despite an imperfect execution, succeeds on this front, and as such I can easily recommend it to documentary fans who are okay with some upsetting subject material. It was shocking and thought-provoking, without feeling manipulative or exploitative, and was well worth the 90 minute running time.

"As a bookish child, I would come to see the one-child policy as one of the most fascinating and bizarre things about the land of my ancestors, equal parts Aldous Huxley and King Herod." Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

Hearing about China's 1979 one-child policy, lasting 35 years, is one thing. Listening to Asians who lived through it is another. The logic of administrators, some of whom who appear in Nanfu Wang's informative and touching documentary, One Child Nation, almost make sense.

Then you realize who is abandoned and who abducted, mostly girls, and you grimace for them and the families who were torn apart by the rule. Assuredly the females had to go first when authorities discovered families with more than one child because the Asian tradition had always favored males.

Wang having been given a man's name (Nanfu translates into "man" and pillar") shows a deft hand at directing without preaching. She does what I find lacking in too many docs-the other side. Those supporting a one-child policy appear frequently praising it as the salvation of a billion people who would have starved or resorted to cannibalism without the population restraint.

The devastating effects cannot be hidden: babies left in baskets, twins separated forever, human trafficking on a grand scale are just a few of the disorders. Propaganda is always there to reinforce the state's message. Wang presents it all, both good and bad.

But like our dark slavery past or Nazi cleansing, heinous plans to control population never seem to survive. The trail, however, is bloody and harrowing.

Wang has expertly balanced between a depressing subject and an important history lesson: "Don't fool with Mother Nature."

To me, the One-Child policy made sense when I was younger and didn't know any better. Fix overpopulation and hearken Malthus by limiting household size. Easy, right? This wasn't America after all; individual liberties are fewer in Communist China...because...isn't it for the good of the collective and not the individual? To my understanding, most of the Chinese were just banding together and willingly sacrificing for their country.

The movie paints an entirely different picture. Yes, there were those believed they were rightful functioning as an extension of the Red policy. Yet, almost every single person that Wang interviews had to preface recollections of the forced sterilizations and abortions with four haunting words: "I had no choice."

This movie investigates the intersect between acting willfully for your country and its opposite: being forced to do what are considered "necessary evils" for the longevity of the country.

Wang is skeptical that any of this suffering needed to happen to begin with. She provides a counter-narrative to the Communist state, wondering if the mountains of abandoned girl babies were left to die in vain. In retrospect, the policy's dubious reasons point more towards a mindless allegiance to leadership than any saving grace from starvation. That's how the movie is presented, at least.

Definitely worth the watch.

A deeply thought provoking and emotionally confronting look at some the people affected by, or tasked with enforcement of China's one child policy established in 1979. The narrative is mostly driven by the film maker's recollections of her experience, and interviews with her family and others in the area where she grew up.

Excellent film making, use of imagery, narration and examination of a number of different perspectives. Very sensitively approaching the subject, she was able to gently yet persuasively coax some truly shocking admissions of guilt from some of her interviewees. Be prepared for some awful images, but thankfully these scenes are not dwelt on for long as macabre voyeurism was not the intent, but to solidly make the point of what happened to many babies. The story told indicates that the one-child policy was implemented in a harsh, cruel, uncompromising and unforgiving way, although it seems the government eventually recognised the need to protect and find new homes via international adoption programmes for babies that were abandoned by their parents trying to avoid the harsh penalties that they would face.

The only criticism is that there is not much in the way of analysis of the reasons that led up to the point of the introduction of the policy in China. This was hinted at by interviews with her mother, but not much else. For an example of a country that should have, but hasn't introduced population control measures, take a look at India. There, they have well over 100 million people enduring appalling, squalid, miserable poverty and hundreds of millions more struggling daily to eke out a meagre existence. Religious dogma and lack of understanding about environmental impact regarding unrestrained human reproduction are at least partly to blame for the coming crisis of over-population in most parts of the world. If the human race is to avoid large scale wars over food, water and climate change induced migration in the next 30 years, then global population controls need to be carefully introduced and incentivised, but not the way the PRC did it. Seen at NZIFF Wellington by a parent of one child.