Love and escape in times of communist tyranny.

When writing for the The Economist in the 1990's, J.M. Ledgard chanced upon a brutal and surreal sequence of events which gave him fodder for his book, Giraffe. Described as Radiohead's Idioteque meets Haruki Murakami, Ledgard captures with paranoia and absurdities of a totalitarian government. Set in the darkness of 1970's Communist Czechoslovakia, the narrative centers around the historical events that led to the the capture and extermination of the largest captive herd of giraffes that ever existed.

The giraffe is an animal so fantastic the Romans thought it came from the improbable coupling of a camel and a leopard. The book begins with the birth of the white bellied giraffe Snehurka: "I entered the world, kicking and writhing, not of my own volition". Through the book Snehurka remains the only character that sees the world as it is, without the need for the lenses of metaphorical devices.

Her human captors and other people who come into contact with her are by contrast all sleepwalkers, hovering in some middle ground between their chemical ridden factories and the mythical creatures that lurk in their rivers. Benumbed by the constant bombardment of bland communist propaganda, each character furtively views the world through their private lens, unable to recognize that the blankness of their comrades mirrors similar coping mechanisms. The underlying assumption is a constant yearning for a different way of life.

When they first see the towering animal, their only response is “Giraffe!” They are – briefly – awoken. The camelopard for them is a metaphor for escape. Even the thick skin on its neck and the complex network of veins enables it to transcend the bonds of gravity.

Ledgard sketches the dissatisfaction of his characters with a bitterness which betrays his preferred side of the iron curtain: even his chief somnambulist Ana dreams of “escaping to a world without lines, where the customer is always right”.

The end is a tragic expose on the mindlessness of captivity: the captive captors carry out the motions of their grisly task, carrying out the extermination of the giraffes they have known and loved, with mechanically numb precision.

The startlingly beautiful evocation of helplessness under totalitarian regimes is echoed in Joan Chen's directorial debut, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl. Set in the PRC of the 60's and 70's the film opens with young Xiu Xiu, daughter of a tailor, signing up to join the ranks of educated youth sent to the rural interior regions as cogs in Mao's dying cultural revolution. Her youthful enthusiasm only dips for the moment that she peers through a hole in the canvas of the truck she's being driven off in, to catch one last glimpse of her woebegone family. Her dimpled smile framed between her patchwork shirts and two plaits, is squeaky clean and cheery, revealing her innocence and girl-scout ambitions. After a few months at the camp she is told that she’s been picked to learn horse-herding, a step leading her to better prospects. Her training would be in the remote steppes of Sichuan, where's she'd spend 6 months in complete isolation. She's assured that Lao Jin the reticent, expressionless Tibetan under whose care she is placed had been castrated by enemy soldiers, and therefore posed no threat to her virginal innocence.

Her new home is a threadbare tent in the middle of an immense stretch of grasslands, completely isolated but for the horses. Her first sign of homesickness is washing herself with a sponge cloth furtively in the tent she shares with the Lao Jin. He politely turns the other way, grunting his acknowledgement of her need for privacy. Through the first half her blithe commands evince unquestioning acquiescence from him, and her invasion of his solitary life melts a way through his stoic exterior.

Joan Chen treats the audience to breathtaking panoramic shots of the steppes, the characters disappearing to minuscule dots in the foreground.

Once Xiu-Xiu's six months are over she packs her things and sits in readiness for the workers to take her back to the main camp: but no one come to get her. The revolution was dead and in her abject despair she falls into listless inactivity, homesick for her life the city. She is chanced upon by a wandering merchant dressed in uniform grey fatigues. He tells her that the regiment she is to command has long been disbanded – but assures her that he had the necessary influence to get her back to the city. All she needs to do, mirroring the individuals relationship with a totalitarian state, is for her to win his favour.

Word gets around soon enough and she barters her body for promises, bending over to a constant stream of men of self-purported 'influence', itinerant merchants, soldiers and workers. She's cheerful through the abuse, believing she is using the only commodity she has to better her stead.

Lao Jin is a silent observer through this grisly burlesque. His emasculation confers on him a state of helplessness. He is shed of all rights to manhood, and the men think nothing of using her body in full sight of him. He shows his love for her the only way he can, holding her mirror for her, or drawing her bath for her.

The denouement has Lao Jin deliriously taking her through a bloody abortion where, abandoned by the state, Xiu Xiu is ostracized and raped by soldiers.

The last scene has Xiu Xiu persuading Lao Jin to shoot her in the foot, so she can be excused from her duties to the state. She plaits her hair, symbols of fresh faced hope and innocence, knots the red chiffon scarf around her neck and stands at attention, unflinching in the face of the gun Lao Jin holds against her head. The scene cuts to a panoramic view of the river snaking along the immense grasslands, and ends with two shots ringing clear in the background.

The film remains a story of love, growing and crushed, amidst the detritus of a failing system. The state, far from Ledgard's panicked and crazed Dr.-Evil-lookalike, is portrayed as an absentee parent, unwilling to deal with the consequences that its mindless decisions confer upon its children.