‘My Motherland and I Are Never Apart’: Exploring the mother-Daughter Relationship in the Film Spring Tide

This article examines how Yang Lina’s Spring Tide (2019) deconstructs China’s myth of maternal sacrifice through the lens of the mother-daughter relationship. Combining Freud and De Jager’s theory of the symbiotic illusion with China’s sociohistorical context, the analysis reveals how generational trauma—rooted in the Cultural Revolution’s de-genderization and post-Reform individualism—shapes a toxic interdependency between a grandmother’s collectivist fervor and her daughter’s silent rebellion. By juxtaposing realist aesthetics with unresolved narrative closure, the film critiques the patriarchal and state apparatuses that weaponize filial piety, offering a radical departure from traditional Chinese cinema’s glorification of maternal benevolence. This study contributes to feminist film scholarship by reframing mother-daughter dynamics as allegories for China’s unresolved tension between socialist legacies and neoliberal individualism.