‘Living The Land’ review: Huo Meng’s story of rural China in the 90s is immersive and ambitious

Dir/scr. Huo Meng. China. 2025. 132mins

Huo Meng’s intimate epic Residing the Land supplies an immersive portrait of early Nineteen Nineties rural China from the angle of a younger boy who’s simply changing into conscious of the challenges dealing with his neighborhood. This concern with China’s heartland in an period of unprecedented modernisation was evident in Huo’s debut Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan (2018), which took the type of a street film. His formidable and extra socially vital follow-up stays rooted in a single village the place it follows 4 generations of a household all through one 12 months.

Deeply poignant but staunchly unsentimental drama

Shot from spring to winter to seize the altering seasons, Residing The Land’s evocatively earthy palette will assist this deeply poignant but staunchly unsentimental drama discover its solution to art-house audiences. It ought to journey extensively following its Berlin Competitors premiere, placing Huo on the map alongside such rising Chinese language skills as Wei Shujun, Zhang Dalei and Gu Xiaogang. By eschewing nostalgic heat in favour of a realist aesthetic and addressing thorny points related to rural communities (notably household planning), this sprawling recreation of China’s current historical past could hit a chord domestically and in choose worldwide arthouse distribution.

In 1991, 10-year-old Xu Chuang (Wang Shang) is being raised by relations within the countryside whereas his dad and mom forge a extra affluent future within the migrant mecca of Shenzhen. China could also be within the throes of a seismic transformation, however Chuang’s childhood on this close-knit village neighborhood is characterised by an adherence to rituals and traditions because the place is sort of suspended in time (the Lunar calendar continues to be used). When not attending faculty, Chuang helps with the annual harvest, attends weddings and funerals, and witnesses his relations wrestle to complement their meagre farming revenue by way of outmoded endeavours.

Of his prolonged household, Chuang is closest to his 20-something auntie Xiuying (Zhang Chuwen) who has emotions for village instructor, Guo (Shao Ran). Chuang turns into a go-between for his or her unconsummated romance, because the near-lovers cross affectionate notes back-and-forth within the boy’s faculty books. There are additionally Chuang’s relationships with two cousins: he tries to forge a brotherly dynamic with the equally aged Laidan (Jiang Yien), whereas changing into troubled by how the older Jihua (Zhou Haotian), who lives with a studying incapacity, is routinely derided as an “fool”.

Taking his cue from household sagas by administrators as numerous as Francis Ford Coppola and Edward Yang, Huo opens the rigorously paced proceedings with an occasion that brings everybody collectively; the funeral of a matriarch. This necessitates the excavation of the stays of the lately deceased’s husband in order that the couple may be buried collectively, adopted by an elaborate, performative burial ritual which fleetingly recollects Tian Zhuangzhuang’s parable The Horse Thief (1986). It’s a joyous event that celebrates a life well-lived within the face of hardship, and foreshadows the “life is tough” philosophy expressed by numerous characters because the movie symbolically progresses from the luxurious greenery and vibrant yellows of spring to the unforgiving depths of winter.

Over what proves to be a testing 12 months, Chuang tries to suit right into a household unit which dutifully welcomes him by no means regards him as a real member. As is plainly identified, Chuang’s surname means the village just isn’t his true residence. But this isn’t the one purpose that he’s misplaced. Performed with a way of compassion and inquisitiveness by gifted youngster actor Wang, this delicate pre-teen is hardly smart past his years however nonetheless finds himself instinctually at odds with the informal cruelty dedicated round him. This underscores the contradictions of a neighborhood that embodies basic virtues but mistreats the guileless Jihua and topics a petrified Xiuying to aggressively patriarchal customs on her marriage ceremony day – though Huo refrains from casting judgment on such behaviour.

Residing the Land is superbly crafted in a largely observational mode which affords the sense of eavesdropping on village affairs, an impression strengthened by Li Tao’s enveloping sound design. (A haunting digital rating by Wan Jianguo is reserved for the tip credit). Huo’s measured enhancing demonstrates appreciable confidence, because the movie takes its time to construct to a metaphoric ultimate scene that’s powerfully pitched between defiance and hopelessness.