ZHANG Yimou’s Coming Home may look like a propaganda film that glorifies the Communist Party but a closer look reveals a moving film about the triumph of love.
It isn’t a political metaphor although it is peppered with revolutionary songs and characters wearing red armbands and waving the little Red book. It comes three years after The Flowers Of War, an adaptation of novelist Yan Geling’s The 13 Flowers Of Nanjing.
Coming Home, an adaptation of Yan’s The Criminal Of Lu Yanshi, is emotionally powerful, enriching and heartbreaking all at the same time. It tells of how ordinary lives are affected by political upheaval — no easy task but Zhang seems to show it well.
While younger audiences may find it hard to grapple with Zhang’s unconventional method of filmmaking, his fans, on the other hand, will rejoice over yet another masterpiece.
For those who are familiar with Zhang’s works, Coming Home is no different than his previous films in terms of style — tight shots, slow camera-pan and using lots of natural light that sometimes falls a little too brightly on the actors’ faces.
Being an intellectual in China during the Communist rule, could be a dangerous thing, or so writes Yan in his novels. Those labelled “political rightist” would be sent to reform through labour, usually working under very harsh conditions.
Ten years ago, Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming) was sent away for “re-education” after he was branded a rightist. But he escapes during a prison transfer and tries to visit his wife, Feng Wanyu (Gong Li), and their now-teenage daughter, Dan Dan (Zhang Huiwen) who has no recollection of her father.
Dan Dan is a promising dancer in the army’s ballet troupe. With Lu’s escape, Dan Dan’s dream of playing the lead role in a new revolutionary play is dashed.
Dan Dan and Feng are told to report any news or whereabouts of Lu. Everything changes when Lu shows up at their house and Dan Dan, who still harbours hopes of playing the lead, turns her father in.
As Lu waits for Feng at a busy train station, hoping to get a glimpse of his wife, the police show up. All hell breaks loose when Feng fails in her frantic attempt to rescue her husband and Lu is taken away.
Years later, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, Lu is freed and returns home to find Feng suffering from amnesia. Dan Dan too has given up her dreams of being a ballet dancer and is working in a local textile factory.
Lu tries to help Feng regain her memory by sharing unsent letters, old photos and piano tuning at the latter’s home.
The piano-tuning scene in the later part of the film is very sentimental. Lu does not give up on Feng and uses music as the last resort to help her remember who he is. Like the rise and fall of the music notes, Feng seems to remember Lu at last, but only for a few moments.
The love story between Lu and Feng takes an opposing forms — one dwells on and only recollects memories of the past while the other tries to amend it. Metaphoric at its best, Feng’s amnesia can be seen as her way of retreating into her comfort zone as she tries to forget the painful past.
Zhang delivers a beautifully-crafted story with fantastic lensing. Most of what happens in the film is centred on the housing block where the family lives and the train station where Feng waits faithfully on the fifth of every month for her husband to return. In the hands of Zhang, one of China’s “fifth-generation” filmmakers, Coming Home is a poignant tale of love lost and being able to stand by one another until the end of time.
NOW
SHOWING
COMING HOME (MANDARIN)
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Starring Gong Li, Chen Daoming, Ni Yan
Duration 110 minutes
Rating P13