Change rarely arrives all at once. More often, it enters through small things: a relative who leaves for the city, a machine that replaces work once done by hand, a television appearing inside a rural home, or a child beginning to imagine a future somewhere else. Living the Land, directed by Huo Meng, finds its emotional power in precisely these details. Set in rural China in the early 1990s, the film observes a community standing quietly between two eras, without yet knowing how profoundly the country around it is about to change.
There is something deeply moving about the way Huo approaches this transformation. Living the Land is not nostalgic in the conventional sense, nor does it present village life as an idyllic alternative to modernity. Hardship, family obligations and deeply rooted traditions are all part of this world. But the film understands that progress can improve lives while simultaneously making certain ways of living disappear. Its sadness comes from recognising that both things can be true at once.
| Film Title | Movie Details |
|---|---|
| Country | China |
| Year | 2025 |
| Genre | Drama |
| Runtime | 132 min |
| Director | Huo Meng |
| Main Actors | Wang Shang, Zhang Chuwen, Zhang Yanrong, Zhang Caixia, Cao Lingzhi |
The story takes place in 1991, in a village in northern China. At its centre is Chuang, a ten-year-old boy whose parents have left the countryside in search of work in the city. Remaining behind with members of his extended family, he grows up surrounded by grandparents, relatives and neighbours whose lives remain closely connected to the land and to traditions passed from one generation to another.
There is not much more that needs to be explained about the plot. Living the Land is less interested in constructing a conventional narrative than in allowing us to spend time within this community. Huo observes births, deaths, marriages, agricultural work, meals, celebrations and family disagreements, gradually creating the sense that we are witnessing not simply one boy’s childhood but an entire social ecosystem.
This makes Chuang an unusual protagonist. The film is seen partly through his experience, but he does not dominate every scene. People enter and leave his world, bringing with them their own frustrations, desires and disappointments. At times, Huo seems almost willing to forget about his central character altogether in order to observe somebody else.
The result feels closer to collective memory than conventional storytelling.
That approach is especially appropriate because Living the Land is fundamentally concerned with transition. In the early 1990s, China’s economic transformation was accelerating, and migration from rural areas towards expanding cities was reshaping families across the country. Chuang’s parents are part of that movement. Their absence is therefore both personal and representative of something much larger happening beyond the boundaries of the village.
Huo never turns those historical changes into a lecture. Instead, modernisation appears at the edges of everyday life.
Agricultural machinery begins to coexist with traditional farming practices. Television brings another world into people’s homes. Young people look beyond the village for opportunities their parents never had. The rhythms that have organised rural existence for generations continue, but we can already sense that they will not continue unchanged forever.
This is where the title becomes particularly meaningful. Living the land is not simply the same thing as living on it. The characters’ identities, relationships and routines are intimately connected to agriculture, seasons, animals and the physical spaces surrounding their homes. The land is economic necessity, family history and cultural memory at the same time.
Yet Huo is careful not to romanticise that relationship.
Life here can be physically exhausting and socially restrictive. Traditional expectations determine much of what people can and cannot do, particularly women. Older generations defend customs that younger people increasingly question. Family provides security, but it can also become a source of obligation from which there is little possibility of escape.
The film is therefore much more interesting than a simple lament for a disappearing rural China. It understands why people leave.
At the same time, it understands what is lost when they do.
Visually, Living the Land is extraordinary precisely because it rarely seems desperate to demonstrate its beauty. Cinematographer Guo Daming frequently allows scenes to unfold in carefully composed wide shots, giving people space to exist within houses, fields and courtyards rather than isolating them through constant close-ups. The camera often watches from a slight distance, creating the feeling that we are observing memories rather than being instructed where to look.
The changing seasons provide another rhythm. Landscapes transform, agricultural tasks change and life continues through repetition. Huo uses that cycle beautifully because it creates a tension between two different kinds of time: the ancient rhythm of the land and the accelerating rhythm of modern China.
One seems permanent.
We know that it isn’t.
There are echoes here of filmmakers who have explored the disappearance of traditional communities through patient observation, but Living the Land has a personality of its own. Huo’s background is particularly relevant: he grew up in rural Henan, and the film draws heavily on the environment and experiences of his childhood. That personal connection may explain why even relatively minor details feel so carefully observed.
The performances contribute enormously to that sense of authenticity. Wang Shang, as Chuang, is especially effective because he never appears to be carrying the symbolic weight that the film places upon him. He is simply a child: curious, observant, occasionally confused and still capable of playing while the adult world around him changes.
That contrast between childhood and historical transformation is one of the film’s quietest strengths. Chuang cannot fully understand the significance of what he is witnessing. For him, this is simply life.
For us, it is already history.
Living the Land premiered in competition at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, where Huo Meng received the Silver Bear for Best Director. The award recognised a film whose ambition is easy to underestimate because so much of its filmmaking feels effortless.
Its 132-minute running time also feels essential to what Huo is attempting. The film needs repetition and patience. We need to experience meals, work, conversations and seasons because only then can we appreciate the gradual transformation taking place underneath them.
There is no single moment when the old world ends and the new one begins.
That is precisely the point.
Living the Land is ultimately a film about what happens when history enters ordinary life almost unnoticed. Families separate, machines arrive, traditions weaken and children begin imagining different futures. None of these changes alone destroys a way of life, yet together they slowly transform it beyond recognition.
Huo Meng looks back at that world without idealising it and without dismissing the progress that followed. What remains is something more complicated and much more affecting: the memory of a place that needed to change, and the recognition that something valuable disappeared when it did.
