Not One Less

In the 1990s, primary education reform had become one of the top priorities in the People's Republic of China. About 160 million Chinese people had missed all or part of their education because of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s,[3] and in 1986 the National People's Congress enacted a law calling for nine years of compulsory education.[4] By 1993, it was clear that much of the country was making little progress on implementing nine-year compulsory education, so the 1993–2000 seven-year plan focused on this goal. One of the major challenges educators faced was the large number of rural schoolchildren dropping out to pursue work.[5] Another issue was a large urban–rural divide: funding and teacher quality were far better in urban schools than rural, and urban students stayed in school longer.[6]

Not One Less was Zhang Yimou's ninth film, but only the second not to star long-time collaborator Gong Li (the first was his 1997 Keep Cool).[7] For this film, he cast only amateur actors whose real-life names and occupations resembled those of characters they played in the film—as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Steven Rea described the performances, the actors are just "people playing variations of themselves in front of the camera".[8] For instance, Tian Zhenda, who played the mayor, was the real-life mayor of a small village,[9] and the primary actors Wei Minzhi and Zhang Huike were selected from among thousands of students in rural schools.[7][10] (The names and occupations of the film's main actors[11][12] are listed in the table below.) The movie was filmed on location at Chicheng County's Shuiquan Primary School, and in the city of Zhangjiakou;[11] both locations are in Hebei province.

The movie was filmed in a documentary-like, "neorealist"[9] style involving hidden cameras and natural lighting.[7][9][13][14] There are also, however, elements of heavy editing—for example, Shelly Kraicer noted that many scenes have frequent, rapid cuts, partially as a result of filming with inexperienced actors.[15]

Zhang had to work closely with government censors during production of the film. He related how the censors "kept reminding [me] not to show China as too backward and too poor", and said that on the title cards at the end of the movie he had to write that the number of rural children dropping out of school each year was one million, although he believed the number was actually three times that.[7] Not One Less was Zhang's first film to enjoy government support and resources.[16]

Thirteen-year-old Wei Minzhi arrives in Shuiquan village to substitute for the village's only teacher (Gao Enman) while he takes a month's leave to care for his ill mother. When Gao discovers that Wei does not have a high school education and has no special talents, he instructs her to teach by copying his texts onto the board and then making the students copy them into their notebooks; he also tells her not to use more than one piece of chalk per day, because the village is too poor to afford more. Before leaving, he explains to her that many students have recently left school to find work in the cities, and he offers her a 10 yuan bonus if all the students are still there when he returns.

When Wei begins teaching, she has little rapport with the students: they shout and run around instead of copying their work, and the class troublemaker, Zhang Huike, insists that "she's not a teacher, she's Wei Chunzhi's big sister!" After putting the lesson on the board, Wei usually sits outside, guarding the door to make sure no students leave until they have finished their work. Early in the month, a sports recruiter comes to take one athletic girl, Ming Xinhong, to a special training school; unwilling to let any students leave, Wei hides Ming, and when the village mayor (Tian Zhenda) finds her, Wei chases after their car in a futile attempt to stop them; and yet they, the sports recruiter and mayor, first notice and comment on Wei's running ability, endurance, and tenacity.

One day, after trying to make the troublemaker Zhang apologize for bothering another student, Wei discovers that Zhang has left to go find work in the nearby city of Zhangjiakou. The village mayor is unwilling to give her money for a bus ticket to the city, so she resolves to earn the money herself, and recruits the remaining students to help. One girl suggests that they can make money by moving bricks in a nearby brickyard, and Wei begins giving the students mathematical exercises centered on finding out how much money they need to earn for the bus tickets, how many bricks they need to move, and how much time it will take. Through these exercises and working to earn money, her rapport with the class improves. After earning the money, she reaches the bus station but learns that the price is higher than she thought, and she cannot afford a ticket. Wei ends up walking most of the way to Zhangjiakou.

Zhangjiakou

Beijing

Location of Zhangjiakou, relative to Beijing

In the city, Wei finds the people that Zhang was supposed to be working with, only to discover that they had lost him at the train station days before. She forces another girl her age, Sun Zhimei, to help her look for Zhang at the train station, but they do not find him. Wei has no success finding Zhang through the public address system and "missing person" posters, so she goes to the local television station to broadcast a missing person notice. The receptionist (Feng Yuying) will not let her in without valid identification, though, and says the only way she can enter is with permission from the station manager, whom she describes as "a man with glasses". For the rest of the day, Wei stands by the station's only gate, stopping every man with glasses, but she does not find the station manager, and spends the night asleep on the street. The next day the station manager (Wu Wanlu) sees her at the gate again, through his window, and lets her in, scolding the receptionist for making her wait outside.

Although Wei has no money to run an ad on TV, the station manager is interested in her story and decides to feature Wei in a talk show special about rural education. On the talk show, Wei is nervous and hardly says a word when the host (Li Fanfan) addresses her, but Zhang—who has been wandering the streets begging for food—sees the show. After Wei and Zhang are reunited, the station manager arranges to have them driven back to Shuiquan village, along with a truckload of school supplies and donations that viewers had sent in. Upon their return, they are greeted by the whole village. In the final scene, Wei presents the students with several boxes of colored chalk that were donated, and allows each student to write one character on the board. The film ends with a series of title cards that recount the actions of the characters after the film ends, and describe the problem of poverty in rural education in China.

While most of Zhang's early films had been historical epics, Not One Less was one of the first to focus on contemporary China.[17][18] The film's main theme involves the difficulties faced in providing rural education in China. When Wei Minzhi arrives in Shuiquan village, the teacher Gao has not been paid in six months and the school building is in disrepair,[19] and chalk is in such short supply that Gao gives Wei specific instructions limiting how large her written characters should be.[20] Wei sleeps in the school building, sharing a bed with several female students. The version of the film released overseas ends with a series of title cards in English, the last of which reads, "Each year, poverty forces one million children in China to leave school. Through the help of donations, about 15% of these children return to school."

Not One Less has thematic and stylistic similarities to the work of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.

Because the people and locations used in the film are real but are carefully selected and edited, the film creates a "friction"[15] between documentary reality and narrative fiction. This balancing act between the real and the imaginary has drawn comparisons to neorealist works such as those of Iranian directors Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf,[13][21][22] and Zhang has openly acknowledged the influence of Kiarostami in this film.[23] Zhang Xiaoling of the University of Nottingham argues that Zhang Yimou used the documentary perspective in order to suggest that the story is an accurate reflection of most rural areas in China,[24] while Shelly Kraicer believes that his "simultaneous presentation of seemingly opposing messages" is a powerful artistic method in of itself, and that it allows Zhang to circumvent censors by guaranteeing that the movie will include at least one message that they like.[15] Jean-Michel Frodon of Le Monde maintains that the film was produced "in the shadow of two superpowers" and needed to make compromises with each.[25]

The film addresses the prominent place that bureaucracy, and verbal negotiation and struggle, occupy in everyday life in China. Many scenes pit Wei against authority figures such as the village mayor, the announcer in the train station, and the TV station receptionist who also acts as a "gatekeeper".[26][27] Aside from Wei, many characters in the film show a "blind faith" in authority figures.[28] While she lacks money and power, Wei overcomes her obstacles through sheer obstinacy and ignorant persistence,[1][29][30] suggesting that speech and perseverance can overcome barriers.[26] Wei becomes an example of "heroic obstinacy"[17] and a model of using determination to face "overwhelming odds".[18] For this reason, the film has been frequently compared to Zhang's 1993 The Story of Qiu Ju, whose heroine is also a determined, stubborn woman; likewise, Qiu Ju is also filmed in a neo-realistic style, set partially in contemporary rural China and partially in the city,[31][32] and employs mostly amateur actors.[33]

Not One Less portrays the mass media as a locus of power: Wei discovers that only someone with money or connections can gain access to a television station, but once someone is on camera she or he becomes part of an "invisible media hegemony" with the power to "manipulate social behavior", catching people's attention where paper advertisements could not and moving cityfolk to donate money to a country school.[34] The power of television within the film's story, according to Laikwan Pang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reflects its prominent place in Chinese society of the late 1990s, when domestic cinema was floundering but television was developing quickly; Pang argues that television-watching forms a "collective consciousness" for Chinese citizens, and that the way television unifies people in Not One Less is an illustration of this.[35]

Zhangjiakou, where the "urban" half of the film takes place

Money is important throughout the film.[8] Concerns about money dominate much of the film—for example, a large portion is devoted to Wei and her students' attempt to earn enough money for bus tickets[36]—as well as motivating them. Most major characters, including Wei, demand payment for their actions,[37] and it is left unclear whether Wei's search for Zhang Huike is motivated by altruism or by the promise of a 10-yuan bonus.[38][39] Zhu Ying points out the prominence of money in the film creates a conflict between traditional Confucian values (such as the implication that the solutions to Wei's problems can be found through the help of authority figures) and modern, capitalist and individualistic society.[38]

Finally, the film illustrates the growing urban–rural divide in China. When Wei reaches Zhangjiakou, the film creates a clear contrast between urban and rural life,[27][30] and the two locations are physically separated by a dark tunnel.[40] The city is not portrayed as idyllic; rather, Zhang shows that rural people are faced with difficulties and discrimination in the cities. While Wei's first view of the city exposes her to well-dressed people and modern buildings, the living quarters she goes to while searching for Zhang Huike are cramped and squalid.[40] Likewise, the iron gate where Wei waits all day for the TV station director reflects the barriers poor people face to survival in the city, and the necessity of connections to avoid becoming an "outsider" in the city.[1] Frequent cuts show Wei and Zhang wandering aimlessly in the streets, Zhang begging for food, and Wei sleeping on the sidewalk; when an enthusiastic TV host later asks Zhang what part of the city left the biggest impression, Zhang replies that the one thing he will never forget is having to beg for food.[41] A.O. Scott of The New York Times compared the "unbearable" despair of the film's second half to that of Vittorio De Sica's 1948 Bicycle Thieves.[29]

• Not One Less at IMDb
• Not One Less at AllMovie
• Not One Less at Rotten Tomatoes
• Not One Less at the Chinese Movie Database
• Not One Less at Sony Pictures Classics