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Published by Helen
May 01, 2009
Catering to the interests of international quality arthouse cinema and all aspects relating to distribution, promotion and networking at www.digitfilms.com. Catch up on pictoral reports of events in exotic places...

NO PRIVACY UNDER MAO !

  

Right after Mao, in Communist China  early 1980s, director Buming XU recalls the situation in most households where a standard toilet was a luxury and people used "potties". A young Chinese girl Dan, lives in  a stifling environment with her family in a house without toilet and has to empty her obnoxious younger brother's waste after he spends most of the day sitting on the loo.

 

When she finally has a flush  toilet  closestool installed next to her bedroom, she suddenly finds strange intrusions occurring and the general public even bashes an opening into the wall for entry to use the prized instrument.

With this depiction of the communautary approach to ll things, even basics and using the  closestool as a symbol, Buming Xu paints an accurate picture of  society  in Communist China where there is no room for individual freedom.