Not One Less

Not One Less (1999)
Starring: Minzhi Wei, Zhang Huike
Director: Zhang Yimou
Rating: NR
Runtime: 106
Genre: Foreign, Drama
By Matt Reichl

Outside of Robert Altman films and Being John Malkovich, a film in which any cast members play themselves is a rare occurrence. Yimou's (To Live, Raise the Red Lantern) latest offering, Not One Less offers something like this: a cast composed entirely of non-professionals using their real names and acting in roles similar to those from their real lives in a work of fiction.

At a small village school in China, teacher Gao (Gao Enman) must leave his duties to tend to his dying mother. The village's mayor (Tian Zhenda) offers his class the only substitute
teacher he can find - 13-year-old Wei (played by Wei Minzhi). It sounds like some sort of dream sequence from an Asian Saved by the Bell knock-off, but, amazingly, it's believable and compelling. Gao is beyond skeptical, and warns Wei that she must maintain the class roster - if she doesn't lose any students, she'll receive a payment bonus. Wei runs into trouble almost immediately, locking horns with 10-year-old nuisance Zhang (Zhang Huike), who gives young Wei a quest that becomes the film's focus: when Zhang disappears into the city to work for his family, Wei goes after him, determined to return him to the village school.

Known best for his melodramas with his former companion Gong Li, Yimou manages to mine memorable screen work from these amateurs, most notably Minzhi and Huike (the latter is so authentically bratty that one can't help but suspect he's a terror in real life). The use of non-professionals is perfect for this sort of spare, neo-realist storytelling and adds a certain air of authenticity to every scene, especially those of the search for the lost boy (a plot point which itself hints at a De Sican influence).

But it's this very search that makes Not One Less' story fall apart. There's just not enough conflict - teacher Gao has said that declining enrollment will threaten the school's funding, but we never believe that this is the reason for Wei's stoic search. One never suspects that avarice (in the form of the payment bonus) is a motivator for Wei, since any suspicions of such are negated by one wonderful scene in which she buys her students their first Coca-Colas. But her search for Zhang doesn't exactly feel compassionate; it's something of a rite of passage into adulthood, and its slight treatment feels inappropriate for such a message-heavy film. This is especially true when Yimou, too afraid we might miss the point of the film, feels obliged to give us a text-on-the-screen coda that explains that reason that so many Chinese students do not finish their education (the answer: poverty).

Despite some occasionally moving moments, Not One Less is ultimately just too spare and restrained for the audience to truly care about its characters' plight. The only scene of emotional release comes late in the film, when Wei breaks down on a television broadcast. But her tears feel less derived from suffering than they do from exhaustion. Likewise, Not One Less, despite its many strengths, is more tiresome than moving.