Rescuing female desire from revolutionary history: Chinese women’s cinema in the 1980s

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper examines Chinese women’s cinema in the 1980s, focusing on Army Nurse (Nüer Lou, dir. Hu Mei, 1985) and Women on the Long March (Mati shengsui, dir. Liu Miaomiao, 1987), both war films directed by two of the most prominent women directors who appeared on the scene in post-socialist China. While female desire is routinely repressed in mainstream war films, Army Nurse and Women on the Long March give voice to women soldiers and their personal memories. My close reading of the films focuses on the ways in which female desires are represented in their narratives and aesthetics. In doing so, I aim to explore the re-emergence of female desire, which was repressed in one way or another during the Mao era, in women’s cinema of the 1980s in mainland China.