An equally absorbing and harrowing documentary deals with the social engineering of China from 1979 to 2015 and the recent (additive) change.
Nanfu Wang is the co-director and spry editor of One Child Nation that may bite off more than it can chew for some discerning cinema goers.
Yet, Wang and colleague Jialing Zhang convey so much in a relative short time frame on the ramifications of such a controlled governmental edict.
It provides personal insight from Wang’s own experiences (having a brother five years her junior) while integrating much social background and potboiler textures to the genre.
The propaganda of this activity comes from complicity (of which Wang is part of) of reflective framing. Her travels include meeting with village denizens, an artist, a high-rank government official, as well as a midwife. Not to mention human traffickers and an audacious U.S. couple involved with the search for children sold into the international adoption market.
Being on-camera nearly in every scene and doing voice-over is a big plus for Wang to keep one locked into crucial moments that are sometimes too disturbing to witness. Especially as One Child Nation reveals the generational impact in which a humanity struggles to survive from a collective, all-too consuming heartbreak.