From the winter of 1942 to the spring of 1944, because of a drought, my hometown of Henan had a problem with eating. At the same time, there were also events happening in the world: the Battle of Stalingrad, Gandhi's hunger strike, Soong Mei Ling's visit to the United States, and Churchill's cold. ——Liu Zhenyun
Taking the grain handed over by his daughter, Fan Dianyuan's face was full of complexity, there was Chinese New Year's Eve guilt and humiliation of selling his daughter, and there was a desire to finally get the grain, and he couldn't wait. He cried out to his ancestors, but in the face of hunger, he had to give up his self-esteem as a former rich man. At this moment, the pride of the past fell completely to the ground, and the glory of the family was shattered.
This is a scene in Feng Xiaogang's movie "Nineteen Forty-Two", a low and cold painting color, a thin and dry face, and a presentation of the catastrophe. But how can the film of just two hours or so fully display the Henan catastrophe?
The real 1943 Henan catastrophe
From the winter of 1942 to the spring of 1944, China was still in the war years, and there was a great famine in Henan, China. The severe drought on the land coupled with the harsh war environment has led to difficult food production, and it is difficult for people to meet the basic food and clothing problems. In order to seek food, people have to flee away from home, some are hungry and take cat meat as food, and some are hungry and make difficult choices between family dignity and human morality, and sell or discard their children.
As the old saying goes, "The people eat for heaven." "Food is the most basic and fundamental place of human desire, and as people who do not worry about eating and wearing today, we cannot truly appreciate the hopelessness and numbness of people when they were hungry and unbearable. When hunger torments the body into human form, when hunger occupies all of the human brain, all emotions gradually become numb, and all morality becomes fragile in the face of basic food and clothing problems. At the end of the day, in order to survive, all order, all principles become fragile and can be abandoned.
Too many parents abandon their children with all their hearts, just to share food with themselves with one less mouth; there are also too many parents who sell their children in exchange for some money to get food and survive; and too many parents who leave their children in the world because they can no longer sustain themselves, and only wish their children more happiness.
The dry land was full of abandoned children, and the little faces were full of hunger for food. At an age when they should be full of innocence and curiosity about the world, they are already facing death. Without the careful shelter of their parents, without the basic food to fill their stomachs, there is no shelter for them to live in peace.
Short and small, not yet sound intellect can not support them to find their way home, there are children on the road with heavy and small steps, walking aimlessly, but seeking a vitality; there are also children who persistently wait on the side of the road, simply believing that their fathers and mothers will always come to pick them up and take them home, but the heavens and the earth are so big, why should they be home?
With a dark face and tattered clothes, the abandoned child added the most heartbreaking stroke to the catastrophe with his weakest body. Children are the flowers of the motherland, but for them, living has become a luxury, talking about the future? And what hope?
At a young age, they have to face the hardships and hardships that cannot be satisfied with basic life problems, and even face the weak human nature embodied in the indifference and abandonment. In the face of this catastrophe, two- or three-year-old children do not know the impact of the war, do not know the inaction of the government, only know that their stomachs are hungry, only know that their parents are gone, and only know that they can not stop crying and crying.
In the era of famine, most people were wandering, even if they could not withstand the hunger of the encroachment, to find liberation, it could only be two or three handfuls of loess, buried at will, no longer ask for anything to die or die decently, the pride and dignity in people's bones in the face of people's most basic desires finally have to bend over.
Multiple lines of text cannot describe the misery and repression of the great famine, and a film cannot vividly show the pain and despair of people in the famine years, and the real situation is always more tragic and heartbreaking.
Behind the famine
This catastrophe is both a natural and a man-made disaster.
Extreme heat and persistent precipitation-free weather make it difficult for the henan region to produce enough food. Food shortages, inflation, and the difficulty of ordinary people to buy food brought in from outside the province make it even more difficult for the victims to survive.
While the war continued, the government imposed a compulsory collection of military food to maintain food supplies for soldiers stationed in Henan, further exacerbating the situation. The Government still focused on the war, and the relief efforts were far from adequate. The central government only reduced the tax to 2.5 million bales, each of which is about 200 catties of wheat, which is completely unable to catch up with the spread of the disaster and is difficult to truly save the people.
The government is busy with struggle, but it forgets that the water carries the boat, the water can also cover the boat, and the people are the foundation of a country. The senior generals were busy pointing out the country, ignoring that the people were in dire straits, and it was difficult for the country's internal affairs to protect themselves. The people have become ants in the eyes of the government, and they have become disposable things in front of the overall situation. In order to fulfill the dignity of the government, the government is not even willing to admit that the famine has suffered heavy casualties, which is a sad song of the great era.
Reflections left by the famine
"Before the world is worried and worried, after the world is happy and happy", the people are the solid source of the country, a country should take the interests of the people as the foundation, and the people should take food as the sky, a country wants to demand prosperity, the first thing to do is to meet the basic food and clothing problems for the people's survival. In the face of disasters and famines, the first thing the state should do is to do its best to rescue the people and save the people from water and fire, so that it can finally realize the great righteousness of a country.
All rules and orders can become fragile in times of danger, and when the food and clothing of a nation's people becomes a problem, the country is bound to become unstable. Renegade morality, burning and plundering are bound to appear more frequently, external troubles are not solved, internal worries arise again, and songs of sorrow are played not only among the people, but also in one country.
Most of the suffering of the people is determined by the political decisions of the upper leadership. War and famine coexist, so who cares about the soldiers and the people? How to allocate properly under the condition of limited resources? These are issues that those in power need to think through.
At the end of "Nineteen Forty-Two", the old owner managed to escape from Henan, but he suffocated his only relative and his only lifeblood, and he was alone. Miserable and miserable, lonely to go to his hometown, but please don't be a foreign soul, die closer to his hometown, and also count the leaves returning to the roots. However, during the journey back, the old owner met a little girl who had lost her father and mother, so he took her with him, and the two of them accompanied each other and disappeared into the night together. The film is slightly processed at the end, and the two companions draw a warmer ending for the sad song of the times.
One old and one young, in turbulent times, there are still people to accompany, and it is not lonely. But in the real Henan catastrophe, how can there be artistic warming treatment, more staged is just a pile of outright tragedies. It is impossible to polish the tragedies of the past, but there is no sad song of the times today.