The movie "To Live" showed the life of an average Chinese man during the early/mid 1900's. The movie showed many examples of what it was like to live under Mao in the 50's for an average man. In the movie you see a lot of pressure to be an average man, as in the communes they would root out landlords and take their land and execute them. This is shown in the movie when the protagonist quickly runs home to his wife to confirm their social status as average workers after he hears a landowner being shot. Another thing that we saw in the movie that showed history is the backyard steel campaign. This was when Mao wanted everyone to basically make steel in their backyards and everyone had to contribute. In the movie the main character is shown giving his spare metal to the commune so that they can make it into steel bullets. One more thing that the movie portrayed quite well is the communal canteens that they had in the time period. During this time the Communist Party wanted to free up as much labor as possible so they had communal canteens to reduce the amount of people that needed to cook. Everyone ate in one place at one time. This movie is not only entertaining, but also gives quite a good history lesson in itself. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for some entertainment while learning something new.
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