This Chinese movie, set in 1971, is about two university students that in the middle of the Cultural revolution, are sent to a mountain village for reeducation, in order to "learn from the peasants". Amid the menial work they are forced to do and the stifling stupidity of the villagers, the pair manages some solace by seducing the young seamstress granddaughter of a local tailor, when they introduce her to a secret cache of forbidden books (including a tome by Honore de Balzac referred in the movie's title). The movie is interesting to watch, yet a bit ugly in its contempt for peasants, who are seen as ugly brutes, basically. This sort of ugly snobbery makes one almost think that maybe Mao had a few points in sending the haughty intellectuals to the countryside for reeducation (of course, in real life, reeducation during the cultural revolution was a much more brutal affair than it is shown here).