FREE ON YOUTUBE The Blue Kite

FREE ON YOUTUBE  I used to often go to East Berlin to visit our friends. My parents told me I shouldn't talk about politics. At least not openly. That would be dangerous in the GDR. It could be heard by the wrong people. The Blue Kite played about 30 years earlier in China. In a small room, it must be somewhere in one of the traditional districts of Beijing, a wedding is celebrated and a child is born. Everyone in the courtyard of the Hutong (a traditional Chinese house with a courtyard) knows each other. Together they rejoice, prepare the food. Everyone brings something. They are normal people. Then one hears a voice from the loudspeakers that transmit the public radio. "Stalin is dead". Who is this Stalin? In the following years, a wave of political hysteria will destroy everything they dreamed of and planned for the long term. This is what The Blue Kite is about: How does it live in times of ideological madness? The boy's name is Tietou. If you translate that, it would mean as much as "iron head". With him we experience family celebrations and the uncanny uncle who sometimes comes. The uncle will join the army. With his girlfriend. Tietou remembers most vividly his blue dragon, which got caught in a tree. The father promised him to buy a new one. In the background of life in China. The country was still in a capitalist system. Slowly, however, there are signs of change. Once the Neighbourhood Committee meets. Who owns the courtyard anyway? The state, they are soothed. The landlady would have just lowered the rent. The good people understand that they have to change something after the revolution in the new China. They are doing their best! But there is one thing they cannot understand: A rational plan is missing. The so-called political turn serves only the purpose to frighten and frighten the citizens. In this way the whole country can be controlled. Then Tietou's father Shalong (Pu Quanxin) disappears. He is a librarian. Once a committee on "right-wing" tendencies meets in his library. The father has to go to the toilet. When he comes back, all eyes are on him. He must have left the room at the wrong moment. At this point we learn what it means not to have reached a quota. Tietou and his mother Shujuan (Lu Liping) are told that their father is far, far away. We experience: He was deported to a labour camp. There he died. Then the "big leap forward" takes place in China. The "Cultural Revolution". It causes poverty and famine. Two more marriages will lead the mother in the hope of ending this misery somehow... Director Tian Zhuangzhuang belongs to the legendary "fifth generation" of directors in China. They brought Chinese films back to the festivals of the world in the late 80s. That a work like The Blue Kite exists at all is probably a miracle! A film that draws its strength from simply showing normal life. We don't see bad guys. Not the great party leader. Sometimes mobs roam the streets and shout slogans. But when you take a closer look they are just neighbours trying to do the right thing. Once the teacher's hair is cut. Fröhlich tells his mother that they have fought the teacher and cut her hair. She is a bad person. Anyone can spit on her. Tietou learns this and believes it. And the husbands of the mother? The first is a friend of the family. But one night he dies. His liver has failed. Malnourished. The second man is a small party official. But one day he proposes a divorce. It would be better if the mother would no longer be seen with him. He would have been denounced during work. The saddest scene is the one when he looks at Tietou. He would have always loved the boy - but the boy would not. But children are like that. Then he is carried out of the house by the mob. Is there anything like "right" or "wrong" at all? No. Only something like immunity against the mob. Not to be discovered. In The Blue Kite we only experience life in the neighbourhood of the Hutongs. The metropolis must be somewhere out there. The capital. Inside you ride your bike and share everything. Everything seems graceful. The faces of these people are beautiful. They are simple. Is that supposed to be the "reactionary bourgeois" life? Just to get the family through? They are universal hopes that people share in The Blue Kite. They want to work well. They want to do the right thing. An old woman explains that she has nothing to do with politics; she is too old for that. But The Blue Kite is a thoroughly political film! It's not primarily about China. It is about the nature of man.