Rithy Panh’s “Rice People” Embraces and Challenges Idyllic, Rural Life
For the upwardly mobile, educated person of serious Blackness, Rithy Panh’s Rice People is the film to watch, complimenting, say, an excellent Runoko Rashidi lecture on the African presence in early Asia. Seriously. It may be quite a wake-up call for a domesticated African American to see Asians (outside of India) with melanin in their body. We can gaze in provincial wonder at this shot of the woman’s radiant, dark amber hands as she invokes the shoots to grow strong. Images like these help us to visualize the reports of the ancient past in great books like Ivan van Sertima’s compilation African Presence in Early Asia. There is an African presence in all of humanity but our modern failings must be met with visual aids.
But let’s not distort Rithy Panh’s vision. He’s nowhere near being concerned with “proving” that some Asians are Blacker than others. The impression I get from him in Rice People is that life on the farm is hard. The scene with crabs is enough to wake up any wanna-be, back-to-nature hippie. But to be more exact: life on the farm fused with urban decay is hard. It is easy to confuse ancient rural living with post-modern rural living. I do not assume that back in the old, old days there would have been no effective cure (and/or no surgical procedure) for a foot punctured by a thorn. But I have no trouble assuming that modern rural people would have no cure for such an injury. Rithy Panh really didn’t clarify matters like this in Rice People—or perhaps I am overlooking a visual message in the film behind the spoken lines.
Comments
achali, 2009-03-19 06:28:33
Interesting that some people may romanticize rural living. My "vision" for rural living for myself has always been based on my childhood experiences with rural living. I guess without that experience I too might be making it into something it's not -- in my head.
But even with my experience, I do STILL find rural living more peaceful than urban living -- without the idealizing of it.
The interesting idea here to me is the reminder that rural is not the same in any two places, let alone a small village in upstate Minnesota and a small village in India.
In my small village in upstate Minnesota, there were hardly any massive farms, but of the farms, there were a few big enough to feed the entire town (and more towns in the area I imagine). So, everyone was not and did not have to be a farmer. There were markets and gas stations a few miles away in the town center were you got groceries or filled up the propane tanks, or bought bait to go fishing with, etc. About an hour away were some clothing stores and electronic stores... Now it could still be said that I'm romanticizing even that, but it's almost unavoidable.
With all of that (and despite the possibility that I'm making it seem easier than urban life just because I don't have it) I still am aiming to live that life one day... the feeling of life in that environment just seems of a higher grade every time I'm in it.