The Ditch (2010)
The film focuses on the suffering of Chinese who were imprisoned in a forced labor camp called Jiabiangou in the Gobi Desert in winter 1960 under Mao Zedong on the grounds that they were "rightist elements". The film tells of the harsh life of these men, who coped with physical exhaustion, extreme cold, starvation and death on a daily basis.
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Reviews
Good start, but then it gets ruined
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
There are some films that you enjoy and some that you admire but not necessarily enjoy watching. The Ditch comes under the latter category. This enactment of the brutalities handed out to some Chinese citizens in late fifties & early sixties by the Mao regime, under the guise of "Re-Education", is certainly tough going. In fact there were several walkouts in the screening that I attended. Although The Ditch is a well made film with realistic performances and tightly controlled direction, it does raise the question of what is necessary to be shown on the screen and what should be left to the viewer's imagination. As an example, a graphic depiction of some one throwing up food and another prisoner feeding himself on the vomit is not everybody's idea of entertainment or even enlightenment. But, as a piece of film making and a history lesson, The Ditch has many worthwhile attributes though one may want to look the other way during certain scenes.