Made in China (2007) User Reviews

see this for all the reasons you should see a great documentary

[svenx-1 · 9/10 · 4 December 2007]

Made in China is one of the more interesting documentaries I've seen this year. I saw it at the Seattle Film festival, and it was very well attended.

Nutshell: Tom Helde is born the son of YMCA missionaries in China. He spends the first 15 years there before coming over to the US, where he raises a family and lives his life with almost no attention paid to telling stories from his youth. Tom's son John, in an attempt to get to know his father better, decides that this would make an interesting documentary (it does) and proceeds to interview his father and many other Americans who grew up in China before WWII. A planned visit with his father to China to explore Tom's youth does not go as planned due to the ravages of time and China's accelerating economic growth.

I was charmed by this film. It's a story about the tenuous bonds of family history told within the exploration of the intersection of American and Chinese cultures. The contrast between pre war China and the light speed growth now experienced is fascinating.

This is a very informative and touching film. It's especially important to see as US and Chinese economic interests seem to be conflicting more and more.

Being a foreigner at home

[refolded · 8/10 · 15 July 2018]

This kind of documentary is a journey of discovery. It's not illustrating what is already known. Filmmaker John Helde sets out to find his father's history. He takes us along as he travels to a non-scripted conclusion.

This film has an easy pace. The people we meet along the way, sort of take over the story, and fill out what the father can't give. I especially like this dialog by some of the American women who were also born in China before World War II.

"I don't know whether we'll be back to China again. And, that makes me sad in one dimension, but I feel I have enough China in me, so that when I leave, I won't have left completely," says B.J. Elder in the 23rd chapter.

"I needed to fit in and grab a hold of wherever I was and not hold onto the past. If I held onto the past, then I would begin to feel lost," says Anne Lockwood Romasco. "I've always felt as though I was passing through a place...I never had the feeling that that was really my home. I was only going on somewhere else, on my way to some other place."

They discuss feeling like a foreigner in China and also like a foreigner when "home" in America. Then Helde becomes a foreigner himself as he makes his way toward his ancestor's birthplace. It is nice to see the friendly welcome by the people of China.

This film makes for a pleasant evening. Its points are soft. They gather as we walk along the trail with John Helde and his companions.