Sous la chaleur du soleil

it reminds us of the first love we had long ago, and nothing can restrain the passion of those young with full of confusion and possibilities. We are always amazed by those colorful characters formed under the certain political time. This film has successfully reached to the part that all human beings share with no matter what political conditions. Although the specific time is long gone and would never come back to China, those old, pure and simplified memories would never fate away. It will always be part of the history and part of us. It is not that simple to tag that time as wrong or right, it was just there, always there, with some smell some colours we never want to leave behind.

This film is an excellent depiction of how people construct narratives of their own past. They take what they like, exaggerate those aspects, try to fit it into a coherent story. They try to construct stories that depict them as who they want to be. People may tell these constructed stories to others, but they also try to convince themselves of the veracity of their constructed stories. This movie explores these ideas in a very powerful way, through the viewpoint of a boy growing up. I found it especially meaningful because I can personally relate to it. I'm not going to spoil the best scenes for you by telling you the way in which the ideas are presented.

I have many classemates that come from Jun Qv Da Yuan(military region), who act exactly as those in the film. In those days(since 1972), there wasnt so much on concern in our mind, hence fighting against the children from other section in the military region became the only extracurriculum activity. Here Id like to express my admire for Jiang Wen, who shot this movie successfully from the first point of view. Thanks!

The cultural revolution was a tumultuous time in China, to put it lightly. A sort of IRL hunger games that saw famine, deadly skirmishes, and violent unrest throughout the country, especially among the youth. The gratuitous violence was only touched upon in the film. The chaos of the cultural revolution was a distant backdrop for what is essentially a coming-of-age story. After reading the wiki, I found out that it is based on a book (an author's scattered recollections of the time) in which the kids belong to a sort of privileged class that was somewhat insulated from the aforementioned chaos.

So, with that said, it is really a movie about first love, lust, jealousy, trying to belong, discovering one's self, and the adolescent awkwardness that pervades it all. In that respect, the film is a triumph. It is superbly acted (especially from the lead) who's emotive stumbling through puberty is sure to elicit uncomfortable emotions from your own teenage years. Add to that the atmospheric and thoughtful camerawork, and you have a unique and memorable film.

I'm very down to earth about Chinese films. There's a few good ones like Suzhou River and Zhang Yimou's 'Huozhe' (Life). The rest I find to be overly catered for Western tastes, i.e. plenty of peasants and moralising tales of how bad Communism was for the tiny minority of privileged intellectuals.

This film is definitely an exception. It is about a boy growing up in the Cultural Revolution, but shows the era with a kind of nostalgia that perhaps may be somewhat alien to the Western psyche. If you really want to learn something about how China experienced 'the Sixties,' then watch this if you can get a hold of it.

On the down side, this film appears to be almost completely unavailable. If anyone knows of a DVD or video release anywhere, it would be much appreciated.