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Review by
Calvin
McMillin: |
I knew that Zhang Ziyi
was beautiful. And I knew she was talented; Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon provided ample evidence of
that. But what I wasn't quite prepared for was how absolutely
captivating she would be in The Road Home, a
simple, old-fashioned love story from Hero director
Zhang Yimou. For every single second that she appeared
onscreen, I couldn't help but be enchanted by her presence.
There was something so extraordinarily pure and wholly
intriguing about her that I couldn't quite put my finger
on. But whatever it is, she's got it and it works. However,
even though Zhang is unquestionably talented, I suspect
that her magnetic performance in The Road Home is not simply the product of fortuitous casting. No,
director extraordinaire Zhang Yimou knows what he's
doing, and one can see a master storyteller at work
from the film's very first frame.
Based on the novel Remembrance by Shi Bao (who also wrote the screenplay), The Road
Home begins and ends its tale in the present day.
But, in a nice reversal of standard movie language,
the modern sequences are shot in dreary black and white
rather than in the usual color. In the first of many
moments that will echo the film's title, a young businessman
named Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei) heads back home to the
tiny village of Sanhetun. It seems that Yusheng's father
Luo Changyu, a beloved schoolteacher, has passed away
while trying to raise money to construct a new schoolhouse.
In Sanhetun, Luo finds his mother, Zhao Di (Zhao Yulian),
mourning at the school. In accordance with an old Chinese
tradition, Di insists that her husband's body be brought
back home from the hospital on foot. At the mayor's
behest, Yusheng tries to dissuade his mother from this
arduous request, but when the prodigal son begins to
reflect on his parents' courtship all those years ago,
he experiences a welcome change of heart.
But before that epiphany
occurs, the film flashes back to a time when Di (now
played by Zhang Ziyi) and Chengyu (Zheng Hao) first
met. In true Wizard of Oz fashion, the color
palette suddenly bursts alive with brilliant greens,
deep reds, and shimmering golds as we are transported
to this earlier, otherworldly time period. Within this
beautiful dreamscape, the couple's straightforward romance
unfolds, as the twenty-year-old Chengyu, the town's
new schoolteacher, meets Di, the prettiest girl in the
village. Immediately, a surprisingly chaste courtship
blossoms between the two, leading to a poignant final
act set in the present day. By story's end, the importance
of the "road home" becomes clear and a splash
of much-deserved color from the past brightens the darkness
of the modern era.
This color-coded framing
device proves to be an effective storytelling tool for
Zhang Yimou. For one, the color scheme is appropriate
in that the drab grays of the framing sequences echo
the death and dreariness that permeate those portions
of the film, whereas the beautiful colors and lush backgrounds
of the middle section reflect the vibrant energy of
the young lovers in the past. Zhang Ziyi's luminous
performance becomes even more amazing, since the explosion
of color accompanies her arrival into the narrative,
providing a welcome antidote to the gloominess of the
first act.
Though director Zhang
Yimou's previous films have been banned innumerable
times by the Chinese government, The Road Home does not contain any "questionable" politics.
Though the scholar Changyu faces questioning for political
reasons, the ramifications of his disappearance are
never addressed. What might be a major plot point in
another film is simply a fact of life in this one; it's
just another obstacle for Zhao Di to overcome, and not
a political statement. Still, the color red does permeate
the film, from Zhao Di's jacket to the banner she weaves
to the beautiful barrette Changyu gives her as a present.
But red has connotations for the Chinese people beyond
Communism, so to read the film as an allegory for the
Cultural Revolution would be a bit of a stretch. In
fact, such a reading sabotages the inherent lyrical
simplicity of the film. The movie is what it is, nothing
more, nothing less.
On a personal note, The
Road Home was a revelation of sorts for me. Unlike
many of the films reviewed on LoveHKFilm.com,
there are no guns, no ghosts, no kicks, no death-defying
stunts. It's just a magical little tale of young love
that somehow transforms you. It makes you discard your
cynicism (if only for the time you're watching it),
and turns you into a wide-eyed believer. I mean, if
even a fraction of the love shown in Zhang Ziyi's face
exists in the real world, then life truly is worth living.
No special effects, no auteur posturing, no postmodernist
twists—The Road Home is just a beautiful
little movie. (Calvin McMillin, 2003) |
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