To Live

I felt as if I were thrust into the movie itself, undergoing the effects of the war between the nationalists and communists; surviving throughout the endless hardships that kept occurring with the rise of the newfound Communist Party. I thought about my own family and how they would survive in the main character’s family’s place. I shuddered to think of what could happen to my own family based on watching this movie and witnessing the pain some of the families had to endure.

I was reluctant to watch this movie due to the fact that it was spoken in a different language; however, with the aid of the subtitles, I realized that the movie spoke out to people of all races, not just the race of the spoken language.

Throughout the movie, the family constantly experienced almost every type of human feeling or condition. I felt that the three feelings most often experienced were as follows: family, survival, and fate. To Live greatly emphasized on the importance of family bonds and values. The family literally had only each other in order to survive. They needed each other, and felt lost without any of them. They were on their own in dealing with the government, their environment, and everyone else around them. As I watched the family eat together, talk together, and find solutions together I thought and imagined my own family and its members and our lives.

I thought about how we all interact with each other every day, and admitted to the fact that a day wouldn’t be the same without talking to them. They are always going to be with me, no matter what. They, like the main character’s family, help each other with everything and would never leave one another in the dark. Without family, there would be no place called “home.”

Survival was an important part of movie’s families’ lives. Everything they did was for a reason, mostly for the need to survive. When a mistake was made, or even when someone has bad luck, their survival can disappear in less than a minute, meaning being imprisoned, or even execution. One of the family members in the movie witnessed an execution, and when I saw it for myself too, I could see my family living in that type of situation, a survival-of-the-fittest type of situation. I felt for the family in the movie when one of their members died by accident just because of a small mistake of sleeping in the wrong spot. Like I stated above, survival can disappear in a matter of seconds.

The last human feeling, fate, was a key factor in the lives of each of the people of the family. Everything that happened to them was for a reason, and everything that didn’t happen was for a reason. When the main character’s house was won out in a teahouse gambling match, the main character would have never been more surprised when the person who won his house was executed later for being a landlord. If it weren’t for him and his addiction of gambling, he and probably his whole family would have been publicly executed later. All of this was because of fate and the family’s destiny.

As I watched and learned about how fate can intervene with all of the actions you decide to take every day, I accepted the feeling called fate, and formed it within my life. I accepted the fact that everything happens for a reason, and we have very little say in the whole matter.

These three feelings: fate, survival, and family were heavily imposed upon me and my life. The teachings of the movie To Live greatly changed my view on life and its many challenges. I have become a better person; not just because I watched this movie, but because I learned from this movie and applied what it has showed to everything that I do, every single day, including the minute that I am writing this essay. This essay is being written for a reason, and everything happens for a reason.