The Story of Qiu Ju and Existentialism

I threw my hands up in the air.  I admit it and everyone saw it.  It wasn’t disbelief as to the outcome of Qiu Ju.  I knew it wasn’t going to turn out well for her.  I expected one bad thing after another; I mean, please, we are studying existentialism here!  I expected that this poor pregnant heroine wasn’t going to have everything wrapped up in a pretty bow.  I prepared myself for tragedy.  But, and perhaps this is my westernized view of myth, I still had that hope in the back of my mind that the chief would humble himself and apologize.  Or that Qiu Ju would catch the police car.  But the look on her freeze-framed face felt like a slap to my poor little heart.  Sartre (as summarized in the introduction to his piece) asserts that reading creates a pact between freedoms, between authors and readers…it “calls forth from the reader examination, admiration and indignation.  It engages our support, consent, critique or opposition.” (1198) So, I feel like Yimou Zhang broke our pact.  I, as the reader, was invited to sample the work, to examine it and formulate my own conclusions as to the motivations and character choices.  But, alas, the director pulled the rug out from under me, so now I, in turn, get to critique him.

Perhaps that is precisely what this fifth generation filmmaker wanted.  Sartre states that it is the “joint effort of the author and reader which brings upon the scene that concrete and imaginary object which is the work of the mind.”  According to Sartre, Zhang needs me just as much as I need him.  And together we get to create and direct meaning within the piece.  In a tale much like Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, it seemed as if our protagonist, Qiu Ju was in a never-ending struggle against the tension and the forces of power in her world.  Each day it was the same struggle, the same trek to and from the village, the district, the city, even the high court, again and again to try to get justice for her husband who had been injured.  All she wanted was an admittance of guilt and an apology from the stubborn chief who didn’t want to “lose face” in front of his subordinates; who bluntly attests: “I am the law.” 

Even from the first shots, we see the sense of suffering (with a lack of meaning) of a people, shoved together in a crowd.  Shot from one singular location, we see a crowd moving, mostly the women are shown in the middle, pushing their way through; no one particularly happy.  Instead it is the daily trudge in which our female protagonist is highlighted.  Possibly Nietzsche would also compare Qiu Ju to Oedipus as he did with so many others (including Dionysus) in his writing.  I imagine he would see her as a "Noble human being who is destined for error and misery despite [her] wisdom." She goes through an enormous suffering, much like the Greek central character, that leaves an impression on her community; her little world.  Searching for her own brand of justice, she is told by countless people, including her own injured husband that there is “nothing to be done,” (the quintessential existentialist sentiment.) Nietzsche further explains that the ultimate form of justice is found in the “limitless suffering of the bold individual on the one hand and the extreme plight of the gods…on the other; the power of both these worlds of suffering to enforce reconciliation.” (780)  Perhaps the gods are a bit of a stretch here, but fate certainly isn’t. 

Told in somewhat of a verite style, a glimpse into Chinese culture is seen and a clear disenchantment with the way the government is run.  We switch back and forth from village life and the countryside, packed with carts, barely functioning vehicles, and quickly disappearing stacks of dried chilies, to the city filled with both Western (American) and Chinese posters, swindling citizens, and propaganda.  Qiu Ju tries to function in a society, so alien from her own, and is faced with the dread of the nothingness to come-that nothing will be resolved.  Though determined to “want to believe there is some justice,” she is continually knocked down.  On another trip into the city, her husband pleads with her to just drop it, to forget the incident and move on.  He wonders what people will say and states that they have “almost no chilies left to sell. All of this was for nothing.”  Her husband doesn’t feel as though anything can be done to change their endless plight and asks: “If he is the chief, what can I do to him?”  But Qui Ju won’t concede.  She will work to cause change, and seems to inhabit the type of character that Nietzsche spoke of: "The noble human being does not sin, so this profound poet wants to tell us; every law, all natural order, indeed the moral world, may be destroyed by his actions, yet by these actions a higher magical circle of effects is drawn which found a new world on the ruins of the old one that has been overthrown." (778)  Not quite humble and inherently stubborn, she is determined to make the chief admit that he was wrong.  Refusing to accept any pacification from other officials who beg her not to let the chief lose face, she won’t take the council of simply having both parties do a self-criticism.  Determined to solve things her own way, she again goes to the chief for justice.  In what is supposed to be a final act of humiliation, the chief throws money at her, requesting that this extremely pregnant woman bows down to him to retrieve it and asserting that they are now even.  In a style all her own, she pulls her coat a little tighter and simply states: “I’ll decide when we are even.”

Sartre identifies “One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world.” (1200)  Qiu Ju needed to feel like she mattered; that her plight and that of her family couldn’t be swept under the rug of bureaucracy and government corruption.  She needed to matter and her voice needed to be heard.  Sometimes she had to enlist another to speak for her, in which case she agreed to spend an exorbitant amount of many for a professional to write a complaint for her and another even larger portion of her family’s money for the year in hiring an unsuccessful lawyer, but she needed to be heard; to matter.  She was willing to sacrifice anything in order to make that happen.  Even the chief, or perhaps especially the chief questions her motives and determination.  Attempting to call her bluff he challenges: “Sue me if you want.  I work for the government.  They will back me up.”

So it is within this sphere that we encounter the text.  A reading is necessary for the story to exist, and it lasts only as long as the reading lasts.  If we “pick up” the film we accept responsibility for it as the reader.  Sartre says that this dialectic tension between the writer and the reader creates a space where “the words are there like traps to arouse our feelings and reflect them towards us.” (1203)  And in this way, the characters are allowed to live for a bit of time – as long as we are having contact with the text.  And in this realm, the Story of Qiu Ju was engaging and clear.  There exists within this piece a clear de-glamorized ordinary life and the individuation vs. community that Nietzsche spoke of.  The government official tells Qiu Ju that “To you this is a big deal, to them, it is nothing.”  Filmed in such as way that it didn’t seem at all inauthentic, the actors, who played their parts with such apparent ease, seemed to be real people, not actors.  They created a community of individuals and narratives.  Nietzsche speaks of the "gospel of universal harmony" in which there is reconciliation with the neighbor. And in this path we see a humbled husband beg the chief to help save his wife, a community torn apart that joins together to carry Qiu Ju to the hospital on a stretcher.  They allowed us to partake in the community of celebration at the baby’s one month party.  But, in true tragic form, all does not end well.  The party is interrupted as the chief is taken to jail.  We will never know if she got an apology, or if it mattered anymore.  Sartre summarizes that in this generosity that exists between the reader and the writer, “the final goal of art [is] to recover this world by giving it to be seen as it is, but as if it had its source in human freedom.” (1209) and that the “more disposed on is to change it [the story], the more alive it will be.” (1210)  So the question is posed, now that we have viewed the film and taken responsibility for it, where do we go from here?  Is there even a point?  Director Yimou Zhang also exhibited an existentialist view.  He stated that “The Chinese censorship system has been in practice for many years. I don't think there will be much change in society in the short run. This situation has been present for a long time and it is a reality in China. I work and live in this system. There has not been a significant change. (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0955443/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm#trivia)

If Sartre says that art is the way we make meaning with the universe and that meaning occurs when we encounter a text, how do we view a piece of art like this film?  How do we view the possibilities of meaningful action in protagonist’s choices?  Or does this ungenerous belief in humanity and human agency even allow for us to make sense of the senselessness.  Nietzsche notes that in tragedy we long to go beyond looking and long to go beyond listening.  And we must consider the tragic myth and music, which “can’t be separated, [as] they express the capacity of a people.”  While perhaps it may be impossible to understand the plight of Qui Ju and her family, it is still possible, and in fact essential for us to encounter this text, her story, and take responsibility for it.  The images seen can be viewed in a new lens.  And maybe there is something to the “countless illusions of beautiful semblance which, at every moment, make existence at all worth living at every moment and thereby urge us to experience the next.” (784)  There is a reason the film was made.  There is a shout that needs to be heard.  Maybe if we keep thinking about the film, that shout won’t be silenced. 

Sartre further claimed: “the artist must entrust to another the job of carrying out what he has begun.”  And that we “can make something more out of what is already there.” (1206)  He is speaking specifically of the role, function, and essential quality of the reader.  But could that be what Yimou Zhang has invited us to do as well?  Could he possibly guide us through but leave the conclusion open and free for us to interpret?  Could he entrust us, as the reader/viewer, to do the story and the character justice?  If that is the case, can I have Qiu Ju wake up and realize that it was all a dream and have someone drive up the hill to give the poor woman a car so she’s not going to die or pop a baby out on the roadside?  I think, sadly that both the existentialists and Qiu Ju herself would find a problem with my supposed ending.  They would both say that if she was meant to have the baby on the roadside, she would have it there, no matter if she owned a car or not.  Nietzsche would comment on the essential qualities of a true tragic hero, and Sartre would likely agree with them both and ridicule me for attempting to mess with a godless universe.  But if “writing is a certain way of wanting freedom” (1213), and this text commits its creators toward that goal, then I as the audience need to take the good I can from the piece and let it inform my decisions and behaviors.  After I threw my hands up in the air, I did, however apologize for complaining that my life is hard, when clearly hard life is being fought every day in a tiny Chinese village with a stubborn chief and a determined woman.