Movie Review: One Child Nation

One Child Nation **** / *****

Directed by: Nanfu Wang & Zhang Lynn.

 

Most of us in the West probably know that for 30 years, China had a one child policy, and that is likely the extent of their knowledge. We all know that China limited the number of children you could have – but the details of how that policy was made and enforced is something that we don’t really give any real thought to. The new documentary One Child Nation – directed by Nanfu Wang and Zhang Lynn, based heavily on Wang’s experiences as a child born under the one child policy in China, before coming to America and becoming a filmmaker – should change that. The result is one of the best – and certainly one of the bleakest – documentaries of the year. And one that shows the pattern repeating itself.

 

No one really disputes the fact that something had to be in China to control the population – which was exploding in the 1970s, and would have led to mass starvation had it continued. So a policy like the one child policy certainly made a certain degree of sense. What One Child Nation does is make it clear just what lengths the Chinese government went with the policy and enforcing it. The film opens with what is essentially cheerful propaganda – we will see quite a few of these videos throughout the film – in which cheerful singers talk about how wonderful it is to only have one child. We will also see darker propaganda throughout the film – spray painted slogans on the side of buildings, banners, etc. – that basically call on people to get abortions.

 

But propaganda is one of the least terrifying aspects of the program. The directors travel back to China and talk to everyone they can about the program and what happened. This includes family members, village officials, health care workers, journalists and human traffickers. They all reveal pieces of the dark story here. Of course, they are shooting all of this on the down low – there are no real government officials interviewed, no official statements. There is a certain degree of risk involved in making the film.

 

The film can get fairly graphic in its descriptions. A few fertility experts, doctors and nurses, talk about performing thousands – tens of thousands – of abortions, often late term (they actually sound kind of like the abortions pro-lifer advocates in the States describe) and forced sterilizations. Family members of Wang’s admit to abandoning their female children at markets – one of whom ended up dying of exposure, another was adopted out to an American family through the human traffickers. The filmmakers also interview a couple in Utah – who adopted three girls for China themselves, and have found an organization dedicated to tracking the truth of what happened to Chinese babies adopted in the West. The birth families are essentially told nothing – the adoptive families are told lies. All are victims.

 

The refrain that comes up again and again in the film “What was I supposed to do?”. This was the policy, and you couldn’t fight the policy. If you didn’t get sterilized, they could destroy your home. Journalists who under covered the story were driven out of the country, etc. And even those family members interviewed see some sort of twisted logic in it all. Nanfu Wang, a woman, questions her own grandfather and his friends about their feelings about having a girl compared to having a boy. The results are not pretty.

 

One Child Nation ends noting that the one child policy has now ended – and replaced with a two child policy now. Ironically, now they have too few young people around to take care of the old people – and a new slogan has been introduced into the propaganda – “Have two children, the young will have friends, the old will be cared for”. What is lacking, of course, is any kind of real examination of the effect the film has had on China. The filmmakers are clear that even though there are times the film could play like a “pro-life” film it isn’t. Near the end, Nanfu Wang says in voiceover that it’s ironic she’s moved from a country who forced women to have abortions to one where they keep trying to pass abortion restrictions. But she notes that both policies are a way of policing and controlling women – and taking away their bodily autonomy. She’s right of course.