Xiu Xiu the Sent Down Girl was a haunting and angry film set during the Cultural Revolution. The Tibetan steppes with an ocean of green and endless blue skies belied the ugliness taking place in a small, ragged tent.

Xiu Xiu waves goodbye to her family as she and other youth from her community are sent to the “countryside” during the Cultural Revolution. At fifteen years of age she is assigned to work with a horse herder in order to learn the skills to come back in six months to lead the Iron Girls Cavalry. Lao Jin is a skilled horseman who understands the land he lives on. During a battle twenty years ago he was castrated, something none of the local men let him live down. Xiu Xiu doesn’t care for her remote assignment but gamely works with Lao Jin in the sun and rain. When the six months come to an end, homesick Xiu Xiu packs her belongs and eagerly waits to be picked up. The bus home never arrives. One by one men come to her and convince her that they can help arrange her permission documents if she will give them the favor of using her body. Desperate to leave the steppe and return to her mother and father she opens herself to the degenerate men while slowly and surely her hope and dignity begin to ebb away.

This was an infuriating movie to watch. Director/writer Joan Chen left most of the politics out and focused more on human nature. Xiu Xiu was a naïve child who wanted to go home. The vast steppe wasn’t freedom to the teenager, more like being stranded on a desert island. As evil men do who have power over women or in this case a beautiful teen girl, they took what they wanted offering empty promises in return. Like the child she was she committed to the only path she could see that might help her escape. Lao Jin allowed her to make her own choices even when he saw how disastrous they were. Only when something happened that wasn’t her choice did he spring into action.

The connection between Xiu Xiu and Lao Jin was engaging. The difference in age was substantial which Lao Jin respected if the men at headquarters did not. He cared for her more as a ward than possible love interest. Xiu Xiu tended to boss him around yet Lao Jin tried to make her as comfortable as possible. Li Xiao Lu (Lu Lu) and Lopsang gave natural heartfelt performances that drew me in as the mismatched work couple.

Both Joan Chen and the author* of the novel this film was based on lived during the Cultural Revolution which gave them some basis for their artistic endeavor. Watching a child willing to do whatever was necessary to break through the corrupt bureaucratic red-tape and institutional abuse of human rights and dignity was devastating. Joan Chen took advantage of the stunning scenery and cloudy skies as the backdrop for the film. Even when human darkness began to erode Xiu Xiu’s self-worth the sun shone brightly. The juxtaposition was jarring. With these kinds of films I worry that they can be more exploitive than revealing. Instead, there was a coiled fury underlying the manipulation and mistreatment of a child who had no money, no power, and no knowledge of the ways of the world. The Cultural Revolution didn’t have a monopoly on those vices. To quote Lao Jin, “Every place is the same.” Every place is the same when those in power are free to do as they will to those with less power.

31 August 2024

*Yan Ge Ling wrote the short story Celestial Bath in 1981