[EN] Cinematic Cartography of Hainan Island

The article is published in the ARKIPEL 2025 Years of Living Dangerously catalog.

Coconut trees are one of the most distinctive icons of the tropical landscape. In economic sense, these trees have many functions: fruit, oil, fiber, and wood, making them often regarded as the tree of life in tropical communities. In cultural sense, coconut trees are also present in the visual imagery of the tropics, often associated with fertility and the beauty of nature.

In the film The Red Detachment of Women (1961, Xie Jin), the presence of coconut trees and the tropical landscape of Hainan Island take on a new meaning. Instead of mere decoration, rows of coconut trees serve as an ideological backdrop for the transformation of characters and revolutionary struggle. Bodies of women in military uniforms moving under the shade of tropical trees shift the tropical imagination from a passive image to a space of discipline, struggle, and revolution. Hainan, a tropical island in southern China, is no longer seen as a geographical periphery but is projected as a center of ideology and geopolitics.

Geographically, Hainan Island is often considered a peripheral region compared to the political and economic centers in the north, such as Beijing. However, its proximity to Southeast Asia makes it a strategic point on the regional map. Hainan is the southern gateway connecting China to international sea lanes, as well as the front line for the convergence of diverse cultural, commercial, and military influences.

In this film, the ideological center is personified through the character Wu Qionghua, a former slave of a landowner who evolves into a female soldier of the Red Army. The film depicts Qionghua's journey, whose body and identity are disciplined and revolutionized by communist ideology. The opening scene shows Qionghua fleeing from her master, Nan Batian. During her escape, she meets Hong Changqing, a member of the Chinese Communist Party disguised as a merchant. When Qionghua is captured, she is rescued by Hong Changqing—an allegory of liberation by communist ideology.

Qionghua then decided to join the Women's Red Army. The contrast between her life at Nan Batian's house and her life after joining the Red Army is key to Qionghua's transformation in the film. At the landlord's house, Qionghua was an object of oppression and violence, whose body was controlled by feudalism. While in the ranks of the women's army, she was educated in military discipline and collective ideology, where everyone lived the same lifestyle—both in the domestic and military spheres. At this point, she was reborn as a new, evolved human being: no longer an object in an unequal social order, but a symbol of disciplined and militant women. As an indigenous person, Qionghua metaphorically represents how local people are placed at the center of the revolutionary narrative. 

The transition from feudal space to a revolutionary one is not only a narrative issue, but also about how cinema shapes the audience's experience through aesthetic contrasts. These contrasts are not only present narratively, but are also reinforced by subtle cinematic strategies, through lighting and visual atmosphere. In the beginning, when the scenes are still centered in the landlord's house, the lighting tends to be dark and gloomy, expressing unequal power relations. The fact that Hong Changqing's arrival at Nan Batian's house is depicted at night further emphasizes this. In contrast, when Qionghua joins the Red Army, the lighting becomes brighter, with choral music and disciplined body choreography presenting an optimistic and hopeful mood. 

Additionally, this film serves as a medium for cross-border political communication. At the third Asian-African Film Festival (FFAA) in Jakarta in 1964, The Red Detachment of Women was shown alongside 15 other films and won the grand prize, the Bandung Award, along with another film, Niguruma No Uta. This film is considered to represent the spirit of Bandung in its resistance against imperialism and feudalism. For China at that time, revolution was understood as a process of restructuring the social order, shifting feudal landowner power towards a socialist society based on farmers and workers. This film reinforces this idea through visual and melodramatic constructions that emphasize the contrast between the old world and the new world. The landlord figure is positioned as a symbol of feudalism, while Wu Qionghua and the Women's Red Army are presented as images of a disciplined and collective future. 

This film cannot be separated from its production context, which was created during the “Seventeen Years Cinema” period (1949-1966), when cinema was used as a pedagogical medium by the state under the auspices of the Shanghai Film Studio. This commissioned film was made by Xie Jin in 1961, before the Chinese Cultural Revolution took place. Social realism, melodrama, and ideological propaganda were woven together to educate the public. Upon its release, the film was warmly received and greatly loved by the Chinese public at the time, even inspiring an adaptation into a revolutionary ballet performance. This made the film as one of the most important cultural artifacts in Chinese communist ideology. 

Political geography also reinforced the film's message. Beijing served as the center of ideology, while Hainan, a tropical island in the south, was portrayed as a peripheral space that was elevated to become a new center of revolution. The island of Hainan's geographical position was close to Taiwan, which at the time was the base of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) and was supported by the United States. This made Hainan a symbolic arena for asserting China's ideological line during the Cold War. Hainan's landscape, in contrast to Beijing in the center, shows how Hainan, as the southernmost frontier, was projected as an ideological center directly confronting imperialism and feudalism, while also resonating with anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa. 

It is important to revisit the film as a reflection on the legacy of Asian-African solidarity in the current context. Through the tropical landscape of Hainan, Wu Qionghua's journey, and the symbolism of the coconut tree, the film places the Chinese revolution in the global horizon of Asia and Africa. Its participation in the Third Asian-African Film Festival confirms that film can be a medium for political and cultural solidarity. []

Reference:

Bunga P. Siagian dan Lilawati Kurnia, “Festival Film Asia Afrika III: Pengetahuan Perempuan dan Imajinasi atas Kedaulatan Sinema”, dalam Capture: Jurnal Seni Media Rekam, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Desember 2023).