New Year Sacrifice

The film is set in a mountain hamlet in eastern China. A poor woman goes through one trial after another. She was sold into marriage as a child. She is widowed while still young. Her mother in law puts her to work in the house. Then she sells the woman on to a poor peasant. Against expectation, the second marriage turns out well. After a long time the woman finds some peace. Then she loses her husband and her son. The way the village looks at her changes from that day. The people there see her as someone who carries bad luck. Nobody wants to come near her. She is cast out and left alone. The film tells this in a heavy and patient register. The account shows the weight of poverty and of custom. Yang Bai and Wei Heling appear in the hundred minute film, a Chinese production Sang Hu finished in 1956.