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1 results

  • 9 - Coping with a Traumatic Past

  • from Part IV - Memory
  • Edited by Daniel Leese, University of Freiburg, Amanda Shuman, University of Freiburg
  • Book:
    Justice After Mao
    Published online:
    31 August 2023
    Print publication:
    14 September 2023, pp 216-238

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on two feature-length documentaries by the Chinese director Wang Bing – He Fengming and Dead Souls – that present the testimonies of individuals accused of being rightists by CCP officials during the Anti-Rightist movement and thereby sent to the Jiabiangou “reeducation through labor” camp. The chapter argues that these two films seek to address the trauma suffered by former rightists who received no official apology nor compensation. Both films describe the marks left by these past events in the minds of witnesses, but they are constructed according to different temporalities. He Fengming renders past events in the present in order to uncover and recognize the problem of the haunting past. Conversely, Dead Souls restores the symbolic separation between the past and the present, thus allowing the audience to face this part of history and engage in a critical reflection on the meaning of morality amid violence.