The Ditch (2010)

Original title

夹边沟

Directed by

Wang Bing

Genre

drama film

Country

Hong Kong, France, Belgium

Runtime

1h 49m

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 26 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This docudrama reenacts life in a forced labor camp in the Gobi Desert during the 1960s. It follows prisoners as they endure extreme cold, starvation, and physical exhaustion.

bleakharrowingslow-pacedunflinchinggrimhistoricalvisceralsomberaustere

What happens

The Ditch (also known as Goodbye Jiabiangou) is a 2010 docudrama film produced, written and directed by Wang Bing, based on the novel Goodbye, Jiabiangou by Yang Xianhui. A reenactment of the forced labor camps called Jiabiangou during 1960's Maoist China, it focuses on the suffering of those imprisoned in the Gobi Desert after the Anti-Rightist Campaign, following the prisoners harsh life, who coped with physical exhaustion, extreme cold, starvation and death on a daily basis. It is one of the first films to tackle the subject. The film had its world premiere at the main competition of the 67th Venice International Film Festival on 6 September 2010 as the film sorpresa, where it was nominated for the Golden Lion. It received positive reviews from critics. In the following years, Wang Bing released three other documentaries on the subject: Traces (2014), Dead Souls (2018) and Beauty Lives in Freedom (2018), which were also met with critical acclaim. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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