In a remote village in China, the teacher of many years has died. His son travels from the city to be with his mother at this sad time, and, while trying to persuade her to drop her request to have men from the village carry her husband's body on foot from the morgue back home, he tells the story of how his parents met – how they fell in love, and how his father was taken away for questioning at a time of political uncertainty.
Although The Road Home may lack the depth and power of Zhang Yimou's best films, Raise The Red Lantern and Ju Dou, its apparent simplicity is deceptive. I really loved scenes like the one in which the young girl's blind mother gets a wandering artisan to mend a precious piece of pottery, or the importance of cooking just the right kind of food to tempt the man you love, give this very beautiful film a depth beneath the apparently serene surface. The heroine, sweetly played by Zhang Ziyi, is stubborn, like all Zhang's heroines, and the political sub-text would surely be a moving one for Chinese audiences.
Only in the overly insistent music score does the director falter; otherwise, this modest but at times heartbreakingly touching film is a real gem, and deserved the Silver Bear it won this year in Berlin.Margaret's Comments:
This is a film from the maker of Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and Ju Dou – Zhang Yimou, a filmmaker I've admired for years. His vision in the early days of the fifth generation of filmmakers in China was revelatory, but with this film, he seems to have lost some of his edge. It's beautiful, it's romantic, it stars Sun Honglei, the next new star after Gong Li one presumes, but it's a disappointing effort from a great filmmaker. It seems overly indulgent and self-gratifying. It is however a crowd-pleaser.
