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Life is a journey, metaphorically and literally. Some journeys are forced upon us, which renders it arduous. Others, like the one taken by the female protagonist,traces some of the most picturesque terrain and hauntingly beautiful landscape of northern and central China, that is an emotional awakening by choice.

‘Feet unbound’ is a documentary film based on the LONG MARCH, one of the most significant events of the China’s Chinese Communist Party which traces the 25,000 km journey from Sichuan to Gansu China made by a contemporary Beijing based reporter, a 28 year old female seeking an adventure. Privileged, bored and restless, like you and me.

In a chauffered vehicle, she traces the journey made by the idealistic teenagers, who joined the Red Army to liberate the people of China and to spread communist notions, and who have to flee in the march in order to escape being slaughtered by the Kuomingtang.

During the march that lasted more than a year, starved, frozen, fatigued, the soldiers died off along the way, those fortunate enough to survive are reduced to picking undigestible seeds from yak shit for food; and after climbing mountains, crossing torrendous rivers, surviving sprays of missile attacks by the kuomintang army, and surviving quicksand pits of the harsh grasslands, the entire Fourth Red Army troop but ten were wiped out when they reached Northwest China, ruled by the Chinese Muslim warlords, the Ma clique. Ma’s army killed the men, raped the women. Those who escaped, most never make it back to their hometowns. The Party fearing their surviving is proof of allegiance, would not take them back.

‘Feet unbound’ traces but a subplot in one of the landmarks of the Communist movement, and touches on the plight of the women comrades that history has either ignored or assigned little importance to. The protagonist questions the need to re-interview the survivors of the ordeal, the truth that will flush down the drains of history as they will soon die off. Tragic stories of individuals, do the survivors own these or must they confess the greatest humiliation and pains of their lives in order to do justice to the history of nation? Who own these stories? The individual or the nation?

The protagonist contemplate these woefully, finding no solace at the end of the journey. Perhaps suggesting that we who live in more liberal time, live in ‘perpectual transit, going from nowhere to nowhere’.