To be honest, I had my prejudices that the film was written with deep anti-communist hysteria or as a cynical critique of communism. I don't know if this is exactly what the director intended, but I read the film as the struggling of a heartfelt communist boy in a corrupt communist country. The story presents a true portrait of the idealism of a working-class youth who in his heart feels the idea of socialism that people and the politicians have destroyed, rather than the "true face of communism" cliché. In this sense, I think it also differs from any Orwellian dystopia.
