Back To 1942

In western countries, cannibal only appears in horror movies or
shipwrecks, but in China, it’s sort of nightmare which bestride the
whole 20th century. 
A drought in Henan happened in the war time ended up as over 3 million death catastrophe.  “Back to 1942” tried its best to make
itself looks like a documentary film—gray hue, dialect dialogue,
full-length shoot which keep reminding you it’s a true story—
sometimes tried too hard.
Civilians torn to pieces by aircraft bombing, refugees selling
daughter for one week’s food, indifferent state leaders and
unconcerned diplomats, news censorship and corrupted officials, by all those scenes director Fen Xiaogang is actually answering
questions he asked in trailers – why could this happen in 20th
century with modern communication and transportation?
Please keep this fact in mind when you try to blame the war or the Japanese or even the Nationalist Party—only 20 years later, under the governor of Communist Party and not any war at all, there
were over 15 million people starving to death in three years.
The only bright spot in the movie is the journalist played by
Adrien Brody -- I believe it’s a metaphor of the solution to famine: FREE SPEECH. In his famous work “Poverty and Famines”,
Amartya Sen made his conclusion, famines are not caused by lack of food, but the lack of democracy and free speech.


66注：英文习作，请大家多指出问题，先谢了。