Abstract
Toward the end of the 1950s, China and the Soviet Union were heading down two different paths, ultimately leading to the disastrous Sino-Soviet split. The Sino-Soviet film coproduction Wind from the East (Feng cong dongfang lai 風從東方來, 1959), a film to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, inadvertently captures such a historical transition. Situating the film in the context of transnational ecocinemas, this article looks into the relationship between natural disasters and Sino-Soviet brotherhood in 1959. The author argues that the film captures a somewhat ambiguous Sino-Soviet bond under threat, oscillating between a nostalgic communist internationalism, on the one hand, and, on the other, a rising and subtle Chinese nationalism. The ecological crises, flooding in particular, serve as an unpronounced and unspecified threat to the Sino-Soviet brotherhood, which could be annihilated by the Sino-Soviet bond. The film captures a moment of natural and political, propagandistic and aesthetic “climate change,” pointing to a future of Sino-Soviet cooperation without sacrificing the Chinese national interests.
