Morning Sun | Reviews

Film International
March 2003

An excerpt from "The Berlinale 2003, take 1"
by Charlotte Sjöholm

Another dictator of pop-iconic value of course is/was Mao Zedong. China this year was the object of several interesting contributions to the Berlinale. The documentary Morning Sun (USA, Hinton/ Barmé) takes a look at the cultural revolution and describes how Chairman Mao, appearing as an embodiment of revolutionary idealism, became a cult-figure for a relentless, violently zealous young generation. Fairly traditional in its structure, Morning Sun blends interviews with participants, eyewitnesses and victims with footage and commentary that give insights to the background scenery of the Cultural Revolution. Actual historical footage documenting the actual events described is of course extremely scarce as well as hard to come by, and what little there is does not show the most appalling atrocities. To a large extent, we simply have to take the eyewitnesses words for what happened.

Well aware of this, the directors of Morning Sun instead of so much feeding us details of different turns of events set upon trying to convey the mindset of those young people seen as that beginning of a bright new day the title speaks of. Above all, this is attempted by taking a look at a novel from the late 19th century, which was widely read and very influential in China as it once had influenced a generation of revolutionaries in Russia: The Gadfly by Ethel Lilian Voynich, a story of idealism, devotion and betrayal. Using this kind of device works very well here.