MOVIE REVIEW

Not One Less (1999)

FILM REVIEW; A Substitute Teacher Is Put to the

Test

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: February 18, 2000

Zhang Yimou's ''Not One Less'' enlarges the

possibilities of filmmaking even as it grounds itself in

one of cinema's oldest, most basic principles: the

camera's ability to document reality.

Mr. Zhang is best known for heart-wrenching, visually

stunning period dramas like ''Raise the Red Lantern''

and ''Shanghai Triad,'' and for his association with

Gong Li, one of the outstanding film actresses of our

time. In ''Not One Less,'' he has chosen to work with a

cast of ordinary villagers and city dwellers --

schoolchildren, shopkeepers and minor functionaries

-- most of whom play themselves. And he has

restrained his painterly temperament -- the sense of

color and composition he used to magnificent effect in

movies like ''Ju Dou'' and ''Red Sorghum'' -- preferring

simply to observe the ragged textures and jerky

rhythms of daily life in a poor, dusty corner of modern

China.

''Not One Less'' is, among other things, about

scarcity. In one early scene, an elderly teacher

painstakingly counts out 26 pieces of chalk, one for

each day of the month he will be absent. When the

chalk is broken and trampled because of the

carelessness of his temporary replacement, you feel

an almost sickening sense of waste. And later you feel

something like awe at the sight of 27 children sharing

their reward for a hot day's Sisyphean labor in a

brickyard: two lukewarm cans of Coca-Cola, which is

all they can afford.

Despite its deliberate austerity, ''Not One Less'' is

extraordinarily rich. And despite the look and pace of

raw documentary film, the movie is a splendid,

assured piece of storytelling. Its narrative emerges

slowly and organically from a mass of observed detail

so that it feels like a series of events the camera has

discovered out in the world, rather than like the

realization of a scheme the filmmaker has devised

beforehand in his mind.

At the center of ''Not One Less'' is Wei (Wei Minzhi), a

13-year-old primary school graduate who has been

pressed into service as a substitute teacher in the

Shuiquan Primary School. She stands a few inches

taller than her charges, and it is hard not to hear

more than a trace of irony in their voices when they

address her, according to the dictates of courtesy and

custom, as ''Teacher Wei.'' Her main qualifications,

other than the fact that no one else wants the job, are

an innate, unsmiling bossiness, neat handwriting and

her ability to perform, in a tentative, quavering voice,

one song about Chairman Mao.

The film's first half is like a cinema-verite debunking

of every uplifting heroic-teacher melodrama from

''The Corn Is Green'' to ''Dangerous Minds.'' Teacher

Wei writes lessons on the blackboard, her students

copy them into notebooks and everybody seems pretty

miserable. Pedagogical rapport is out of the question:

either Wei succeeds in browbeating her pupils or they

succeed in humiliating her. (The impulse to abuse

substitute teachers seems to transcend cultures.)

Especially successful is Zhang Huike, who drives Wei

to paroxysms of frustration. (The class clown is also,

apparently, a universal archetype, unless young

Zhang Huike has access to pirated satellite

broadcasts of ''The Simpsons.'')

But then Zhang Huike is sent to the city to work off

his parents' debts. Wei, who has been promised a

bonus if she can keep her class intact (this is the

source of the film's title), sets out to bring him home.

And the movie, which has so far been a slow, touching

study of village life, becomes something else: a work

of lyrical realism that has some of the shattering,

redemptive power of Vittorio De Sica's ''Bicycle

Thief.''

Wei Minzhi's performance, if that is the word for it,

slowly takes on a heroic cast. Her character is

composed of equal parts pigheadedness and

cluelessness, which is to say that she's 13 in a way

that anyone who knows a real 13-year-old, or has

been one, will recognize. Her sense of how the world

works is based on instinct, wishful thinking and

second-hand information, and is almost entirely at

odds with the way the world works.

The long second half of the film, in which Wei

fruitlessly hunts for Zhang Huike on the bewildering

streets of the provincial metropolis of Jiangjiakou

City, is almost unbearable. Why doesn't she just give

up and go home? Only an infernally stubborn,

hopelessly ignorant child would persevere in the face

of a world so huge, so unyielding and so casual in its

cruelty.

Wei might be the younger sister of the title character

in ''The Story of Qiu Ju,'' Mr. Zhang's 1992 film, which

starred an almost unrecognizable Gong Li as a

pregnant farmer's wife pursuing an apparently

hopeless cause through China's implacable legal

bureaucracy. Like Qiu Ju, Teacher Wei will not take

no for an answer, and the force of her will transports

this movie beyond naturalism into the realm of poetry.

''Not One Less'' earns its emotional payoff the hard

way. It may be the greatest film ever made about

obstinacy, which it reveals to be not only a virtue, but

also a species of grace. 

NOT ONE LESS 

Directed by Zhang Yimou; written (in Mandarin, with

English subtitles) by Shi Xiangsheng, based on his

novel; director of photography, Hou Yong; edited by

Zhai Ru; music by San Bao; produced by Zhao Yu;

released by Sony Pictures Classics. Running time: 106

minutes. This film is not rated. 

WITH: Wei Minzhi (Herself), Zhang Huike (Himself),

Tian Zhenda (Mayor Tian), Gao Enman (Teacher Gao),

Sun Zhimei (Sun Zhimei), Feng Yuying (Television

Station Receptionist) and Li Fanfan (Television Host).

 NOT ONE LESS REFLECTION

Director: Zhang Yimou

 

Not One Less is a heartening movie about a young teachers growing sense of responsibility and compassion towards her students. The movie is set in the village of Shuiquan in China. It’s a tiny village and the people in the village are poor. It was disappointing to see the students in a small school with only one room, where all the students were put together, all at different levels and ages. Some children knew how to read very well, whereas some children couldn’t read at all. It was also sad to see that they had hardly any school supplies, they had no technology in the classroom and there was a significant amount of students that dropped out of school.

When the village’s only teacher, Mr Gao must leave for one month to look after his sick mother, the mayor hires thirteen-year-old Wei Minzhi to substitute.  Mr Gao promises her an extra 10 yuan if there is ‘not one less’ student when he returns. I think that Wei was left with too much responsibility to handle, especially because she is only a few years older than some of the students.

When Zhang leaves school and heads for the closest big city to work for his family, Wei deicides to go to the city and bring him home. I think that Wei intentionally decided to find Zhang because of the extra money, but then during her extensive and difficult search for Zhang it was apparent that she developed feelings for Zhang during her journey and she learnt how to be compassionate and caring for her students. Around this part of the movie I think that her love and care for her student was genuine, she felt sympathetic towards Zhang and that the extra money was no longer the matter. Her reasons for searching changed.

When I watched this movie, I was touched by Wei’s determination and perseverance to find Zhang and bring him back to school and I began to realise that she is sincere when she makes her announcement on T.V. I was also touched by her courage and will power, when things go terribly wrong Wei continues on searching for Zhang. In the city both Wei and Zhang learn a hard lesson. Their long and tiresome journey was a learning experience for the both of them.

When Wei conducts the class activity of calculating and raising the money needed for her bus fare, it showed how capable the students were. The children were fascinated and attentive during that activity and they were learning significantly from that lesson. I thought it was a very clever idea for Wei to get the children inspired. I think it motivated the students because they were helping their classmate and they were actually working the problem out for a reason, not just for the sake of doing it or copying from the board. The lesson was constructive for the students.

By the end of the film, I believe that Wei learnt what it takes to be a teacher. I think she has the heart to be a teacher all she needs is the necessary skills to be a teacher, which in time she will develop as she matures. This film shows how much difference one teacher can make on their students and how brilliant and amazing kids can be. Children just need encouragement and support so that they can reach their potential. Every child has what it takes to successful. Not One Less is an encouraging film and moving, that brings hope to many.

 

Wei Minzhi with Teacher Gao and Mayor

 

Wei Minzhi and in her class with her students

 

Wei Minzhi in the city writing posters to find Zhang

 

Wei Minzhi at the Television Station making an announcement for the whereabouts of Zhang

For more information on the movie "Not One Less" click on the link below

"Not One Less"

It's the first great film of this year for me. `Not One Less' is storytelling at its dead straightest - most like the work of the contemporary Iranians Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami but also directly connected to the great Neorealists DeSica, Rosselini and Bunuel. All revel in telling culturally specific stories that reflect universal human experiences that are resonant across all time and place. But as I sat there, freshest on my mind was David Lynch's `The Straight Story.' Both Lynch and Zhang take us on a small journey that reflects a world's worth of living. Both show us that harrowing experience and heroism, seemingly small scale in their films, can

be writ in large and commanding script across the lives of ordinary people.

Shi Xiangsheng's script is a rural fable based on his own story set in remote China, Hebei - the dry high plains, an undoubtedly stiffening existence. It's shot as beautifully as any of Zhang's films - he's a deft colorist, one of the great painterly directors in cinema (see `Ju Dou' and `Raise the Red Lantern'). The children are crimson-cheeked with complexions warmed and toasted by the unfiltered sun - but they will surely, eventually become worn and parched like their elders, Teacher Gao and Mayor Tian. We see an honest poverty here in great detail. The film's camerawork lets every detail seep into us, allowing us to feel the film's atmospherics and making us thirst in its arid heat and dust. (When the 26 children share 2 cans of warm Coca Cola after a long and hard day, we, too, want to get in line for our sip.)

Thirteen-year-old Wei Minxhi is dragged along by Mayor Tian to the village' s ramshackle one-room schoolhouse to meet Teacher Gao. She is to become the school's substitute teacher for one month while Gao leaves to tend to his ailing mother. He can't in good conscience leave this child to shepherd his children but he is without a choice - it's the kind of hard rationalism that is part of everyday life here. Before leaving, he counsels her sternly and provisions her with only a ragged lesson book and one stick (and only one stick) of chalk for every day he will be gone. He shows her the narrow bed in the adjoining room that she will share with 3 boarding students.

Teacher Gao is an old man who has suffered a lot of dedicated and dictated poverty in order to improve the lot of his village's children. We come to know his commitment to his work even at this stage of his life when he warns her that conditions are hard in this village and that the vicissitudes of life weigh very heavily on the children here. When he says he has already lost 10 students you know he has felt the loss of every single one. He commands her to keep the body of his school together and that when he returns, he wants to see every one of his students present - and not one less.

`Not One Less' is about young Teacher Wei's struggle to meet his simple challenge. We see immediately that she has more reluctance than skill or gumption for this task. But in a culture that expects obedience, she has no recourse. And nowhere else to go. She is more like a sullen older sister than a teacher. And because they are children, the students begin to test her a little. They aren't bratty kids, just rambunctious and resistant to the discipline of schoolwork. She hasn't a clue about how to make them work, so she just writes the lesson on the board and posts herself against the door, barring any escape. Her handwriting is neat and orderly but as the

film progresses, we come to see that Teacher Wei is only a little more schooled than her charges.

The great thing about `Not One Less' is its unstinting perspective on the innocence and naiveté that only a child lives in. Teacher Wei and these children are completely guileless, without a window on the wide world, and have none of the knowledge or calculation for the simplest complexities of modern life. The film's crisis is that the class troublemaker, eleven-year-old bumpkin Zhang Huike, leaves unannounced for the city so he can earn money for his destitute family. Wei feels the absolute fear of her failure to keep her pledge and is desperate to go and find young Zhang. Figuring out how to get to the city to find him - for her and these children, it might as well be a search for the Holy Grail. It seems as fraught with myth and legend. Yet she, in her naiveté, is undaunted. Many schemes are attempted and when each fails, she just begins walking, having no idea how far it is or how long it will take her or what lies ahead when she gets there. She just knows she must find him.

Her journey is the quest of her young life just as Alvin Straight's is the culminating quest of his life. It is a defining act for both. There are no earth-shattering twists of plot to keep from you. It is the unfolding of a redemptive story, a boldly honest portrait of a world away from our experience and a young girl's attempt to navigate it with all her will and perseverance and naiveté - and only that - to sustain her. In the end, we feel we have been somewhere we've never been before and, perhaps, learned something that we had long forgotten. It is the singular power of cinema to transport us this way, to jack us directly into a net of experience we can feel so deeply in our hearts.