Educational Media Reviews Online

In this documentary film Zhong Jian accompanies his mother to the rural Chinese village of her childhood. Zhong’s mother, one of seven daughters, was raised in the village during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She reminisces about her time as a Red Guard, the destruction of family heirlooms, and the acute poverty she had grown up with. Hunger was a big part of Zhong’s mother’s childhood and time and again her visit to the village brought back memories of the efforts the family made in order to survive. For her son she describes some of the items they ate to fill their stomachs. Items now discarded or fed to animals such as rice bits (the tiny bits of rice that are produced as a byproduct of the husking process), and old cabbage leaves were staples during the frequent times of shortages.

The tour of the home village and surrounding areas the pair takes allows viewers to compare Zhong’s mother’s stories with the current living situations in the area. While the villagers are not suffering from a lack of food and life seems to move along according to traditional patterns, there are a number of new challenges to face such as environmental degradation, strict birth control policies, and an evolving economy.

Zhong offers little context or commentary to his mother’s recollections. While her memories of village life in Cultural Revolution China shed light on a very important period of modern Chinese history, Try to Remember would best be viewed by those with some background in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. This film should be of value to those with an interest in modern Chinese history and is recommended to viewers from jr. high to adult and to the libraries that serve them.