To Live

 To Live is a Chinese film that follows a single family through the change from capitalism to communist Government after the civil war. The Head of the family began the movie as a gambler who lost his father's house and possessions. His wife leaves him as she is pregnant with their second child. He is reformed, comes back to her determined to be the best father he can be, which means going to war. His family loses everything while he is away, and works as mild deliverers. The family goes along with the communist government, and at first it seems to signal happy times for them, until the youngest child is sacrificed, not only due to the Father's lack of compassion but to the communist government as an officer is responsible for his death. This film walks a line between cultural comment upon the drawbacks of communism, as loss of culture is symbolized in the loss of the shadow puppets the father used to keep his family afloat during the hard years. Once the shadow puppets were sacrificed, there was a darker picture of the government who by the closing of the film were locking up doctors and having students with little to no training bringing about new life into the world.