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From 1979 to 2015, China enforced the famous "one-child policy" to deal with the rapidly growing population. To achieve this, they used propaganda, law enforcement, fines, and ultimately forced sterilizations and abortions. This documentary follows the implementation of that policy and the impact it had in the general population and in the country overall.
Wang, who was born in China during that period, uses her family as a starting point to highlight the lengths to which the government would go to enforce this policy. To do so, she interviews a former village leader, authors of propaganda, as well as a midwife that claims to have performed tens of thousands of abortions. She also establishes the connection between the one-child policy and the growing Chinese adoption market, which was established in the 1990s, and is fed by child trafficking as a direct result of the one-child policy.
Most of what the documentary presents is both compelling and shocking, but there are times when it feels a bit scattered. I would've appreciated a bit more focus. Finally, Wang's general approach is also somewhat amateurish, both in how she addresses some of her interviewees and in how she directs it. There are parts where you can see the "seams" of her narrative, and the conclusions don't feel organic, but rather forced. Given the source material, I don't think that was necessary.
Grade:
ONE CHILD NATION
(2019, Wang & Zhiang)
A film with the word "One" in its title
(2019, Wang & Zhiang)
A film with the word "One" in its title
"I'm struck by the irony that I left a country where the government forced women to abort and I moved to another country where the governments restrict abortions."
From 1979 to 2015, China enforced the famous "one-child policy" to deal with the rapidly growing population. To achieve this, they used propaganda, law enforcement, fines, and ultimately forced sterilizations and abortions. This documentary follows the implementation of that policy and the impact it had in the general population and in the country overall.
Wang, who was born in China during that period, uses her family as a starting point to highlight the lengths to which the government would go to enforce this policy. To do so, she interviews a former village leader, authors of propaganda, as well as a midwife that claims to have performed tens of thousands of abortions. She also establishes the connection between the one-child policy and the growing Chinese adoption market, which was established in the 1990s, and is fed by child trafficking as a direct result of the one-child policy.
Most of what the documentary presents is both compelling and shocking, but there are times when it feels a bit scattered. I would've appreciated a bit more focus. Finally, Wang's general approach is also somewhat amateurish, both in how she addresses some of her interviewees and in how she directs it. There are parts where you can see the "seams" of her narrative, and the conclusions don't feel organic, but rather forced. Given the source material, I don't think that was necessary.
Grade: