Jiabiangou

There are some films that you enjoy and some that you admire but not necessarily enjoy watching. The Ditch comes under the latter category. This enactment of the brutalities handed out to some Chinese citizens in late fifties & early sixties by the Mao regime, under the guise of "Re-Education", is certainly tough going. In fact there were several walkouts in the screening that I attended. Although The Ditch is a well made film with realistic performances and tightly controlled direction, it does raise the question of what is necessary to be shown on the screen and what should be left to the viewer's imagination. As an example, a graphic depiction of some one throwing up food and another prisoner feeding himself on the vomit is not everybody's idea of entertainment or even enlightenment. But, as a piece of film making and a history lesson, The Ditch has many worthwhile attributes though one may want to look the other way during certain scenes.

When people cease to be people and become code names (whether they are "rightists", "infidels" or so-called "inferior races" are essentially the same), hell will follow. And those in power are better than ever at oppressing the weak. The Jiabiangou at that moment is exactly the same as Shanghai at this moment. China desperately needs such films to help us truly remember history.

Sixty years later, people are still suffering from hunger, or even are dying from starvation in Shanghai, which is the most developed city in China, because of the dictatorship of government.