"Ditch", a Cinema on the anti-Rightist Policy in China

A two-hour HongKong-French-Belgian cinema "Ditch" is on the anti-Rightist movement in China in the mid-1950s. As such it is very gloomy, and in more ways than one.
Most of the two hours are on the life in the 'ditches', meaning in this case caves dug in the yellow soil in the Northwestern China, familiar to those who have seen, directly or indirectly, the life at Yan'an, the HQ of the Communist Party for most of their anti-Japanese, anti-Nationalist war. This is in Kansu Province, still more to the west, which is more arid and bordering the Gobi Desert. It is in winter, with freezing temperature, no precipitation, lots of wild wind.
On top of this background, most of the scenes are those of the life of the ditches, which does not amount much more than starving, with hardly any solid food given in a bowl.
Another common event is dying in bed, mostly during the night. Yes, a death occurs quite often. The dead is tied up, brought to the sandy field, and buried. But can one call it a burial when the body is simply placed on the ground and is covered with just some soil. Sometimes even those bodies are robbed of their clothes which are exchanged for food.
What about labour? Are the ditches not the labour camps? But this not the agricultural season. There is no water available for cultivation(no real ditch to be seen!). Moreover, because of the nation-wide famine, the ration has been cut and the prisoners are told to take more rest.
Yes, they are prisoners. Is there any better way of calling them? Although no figure is given in the cinema, there must have been thousands of them in Kansu alone. Most of them must have said something more or less critical of the party line in the "Let Hundred Flowers Blossom" movement started by the party in April 1956. Encouraged by this, many people put their ideas and criticism forward.
But whether by the original design or by the policy change, the party has decided in the middle of 1957 to call those people "rightist", and to detain them in the labour camps. The concrete example in the cinema is the case of a man who told the party that 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' should be replaced by 'the dictatorship of the whole people', since the former is too narrow a concept. It is a piece of friendly advice, rather than criticism, much less an attack. Left alone he would have been a diligent person, basically loyal to the country in spite of holding the above sort of ideas. It would be a great loss to look at such a person as an enemy, alienate him, put him to hard labour without any compensation and freedom in separation from the family. Unfortunately for China and her people this is what happened. Thousands were labelled 'rightists'. It may be presumed that they are more active, creative and talented people than the average. Hence all the more loss to the country.
The monotony of the cinema is broken by some incidents like the visit of the wife from Shanghai of a man who has breathed his last a few days ago, and the attempted escape of two men. Fortunately there is very little of physical violence throughout.
The cinema ends with a suggestion that most of the survivors, except those who are in danger of dying on the train(!), will be allowed to go home soon, but a new batch is on the way here.
We are reminded, and this is what makes it more gloomy, that this was not the end, but only the beginning, of the huge suffering of the people of China. In that sense the cinema is about an epoch-making period.