Zhang Yimou writes “scar literature” about cinema in One Second, a film set in the Cultural Revolution
With two Golden Lion awards, one Golden Bear, three nominations for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, and directorship of the opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Zhang Yimou hardly seems likely to run afoul of China’s film censorship by the fourth decade of his illustrious career.
Yet One Second, the director’s self-written meditation on the Cultural Revolution, was delayed almost two years after it was scheduled to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019, appearing to Chinese audiences only at the end of November 2020. It was ostensibly removed from the program due to “technical reasons,” but as no details were ever given, there was wide speculation that the film’s sensitive content was to blame.
Zhang Yimou, who experienced the Cultural Revolution himself, tells the story of Zhang Jiusheng, a convict who is sentenced to reform-through-labor. Zhang Jiusheng escapes from his labor camp to watch the screening of the film Heroic Sons and Daughters, as his deceased daughter appears in a one-second shot in a news briefing before the movie.
There, he meets Liu Guinü, an orphan who wants to steal the film reel in order to pay off her brother’s debt, and Fan Dianying, the projectionist, who considers cutting out a frame of the film to give to Zhang Jiusheng due to the guilt he feels for putting politics over his own son’s life.
According to Zhang Yimou, the death of Zhang Jiusheng’s daughter was originally shown onscreen, but deleted in the final cut of the film. Other references to the decade were removed, leaving only the posters on the wall, the names of the revolutionary masses, and the red armband of the Security Department to hint at the political context.
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