Unlike previous movies, the movie Song of Youth is propaganda for the 10th anniversary for the PRC at that time. So this film is highly symbolized with many elements that the authority wanted to judge.
In general, this film provides a communist narrative on modern Chinese history. The protagonist Lin Daojin represents the Chinese people (especially the young generation during the ROC time). She can’t bear with the bullish from tradition, which represented by her mother and Mr Hu from Kuo Min Dang. At the beginning, she is saved by a character Yu Yongze who represented the Bourgeois Revolution happened in 1911.
The setting for Yu Yongze is very representative. He is the son of a landlord in rural area. However, he himself accepts modern education and is a college student in the best university at that time, Peking University. His modern value makes him feel sympathy for what Lin Daoyu had suffered and provides help to her. However, because the communist believed that the bourgeois revolution has its own limitation on representing the interest of traditional power class, the character Yu Yongze still has some hidden traditional values that he may not even notice. For instance, when Lin Daojing tried to find a job in Peping to be an independent woman, Yu convinced her to give up and be a housewife at home to take care of him. Also, the authority carefully selected some symbols that already been criticized in national-wide, like Hu Shih. In 1954, the communist government started a nation wide movement on criticizing Hu Shih’s in order to eliminate his influence among intellectuals and his bourgeois idea. In 1959, Hu Shih almost represents the wrong idea in communist China. By letting YU Yongze mentioned Hu Shih again and again, the authority not only builds the negative impression for those who know Hu Shih’s “mistakes” but also educates people who don’t know much about Hu Shih will have bad impression on him because Yu Yongze as a bad guy is his protégé.
After showing the fakeness and limitations of the bourgeois way through the character of Yu Yongze. Communists start to show up in the film. There are 3 communists in this film, which in my understanding represents 3 prominent impressions of communists that the party wants audiences to have. Lu Jiachuan may be the most attractive character in this film. In my mind, he represents the intellectual idealism side of the communist revolution. This type of person may not be the central elements of success, but they definitely attract youth like Lin Daojing to participate in the communist movement. His death is also unavoidable just like the Chinese communist party’s turning from an intellectual-elites organization to a peasant-based party. So, the character Jing Hua represents CCP’s rural revolutions. Though I think this part is boring and unnecessary for the film’s plot, it has to be kept as an important part to fulfil the narration on communist revolution in China. The prison part and the character of Lin Hong represents the third type of communist narrative in the mainstream after 1949. In order to explain the legitimacy of the communist ruling, the propaganda pursues moral advancement. The climax of this effort is the famous novel 《红岩》 published in 1961, but the character Lin Hong already showed the characters like willing to sacrifice for the communist idea. This one would earn respect from audiences and consolidated the legitimacy of the party.
After 1949, the film as part of 文艺 becomes the tool for the authority to propaganda the idea and legitimacy. Every element in this film is not simple but with political meaning. That is the character of that time, everything is highly politicalized.
正片
