The Road Home
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Movie Reviews of The Road Home
Movie Review: A touching and compelling love story
Summary: 5 Stars
[Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.]
This is not as opulently beautiful as some of Zhang Yimou's films but the story is compelling and wonderfully told with deep affection for the characters. It's a love story beginning in the present with the death of a beloved village school teacher whose widow demands that he be honored by having his body carried--not driven--from where he died to his home in the small mountain village where he taught for over 40 years. The expense seems extravagant and where will the pallbearers come from? Most of the young people have left the village for the cities.
Returning for the funeral is the dead teacher's son. He realizes how important this ancient tradition of actually, physically carrying the body home, and so he goes about making that happen for his illiterate mother who is now all alone.
The real focus of the movie however is the extraordinarily beautiful face of the then 19-year-old Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000; Memoirs of a Geisha 2005) who plays Zhao Di, the mother as a young woman. We are flashed back to the teacher's arrival in the village and to the young Zhao Di doing everything in the exuberant way of first love that she can to catch his eye. Again and again Zhang has his camera focused tightly on Zhang Ziyi's face as she experiences love at virtual first sight and goes through all the emotions of love's labors. Pointedly Zhang Yimou shows only her face. Her body is covered in the padded winter clothes of the Chinese north.
In this focus on the skill, charisma and beauty of Zhang Ziyi one sees perhaps the influence of some Western directors like Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Roget Vidam who made movies in homage to the beauty of their young stars, Bergman with Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann, Kieslowski with Juliette Binoche and Irene Jacob, and Vadim with Bridget Bardot and Jane Fonda.
As always in the films of Zhang Yimou one sees in the background or off to a side a gentle but penetrating subtext on the effect that communism has had on Chinese society. Here he gives not criticism but guidance as he carefully insists that the traditional ways have value and should not be completely shoved aside.
Movie Review: gorgeous
Summary: 5 Stars
After his father passes away, Luo Changyu returns to his country home for the first time in several years. There he finds his mother sitting outside the old schoolhouse mourning the loss of her husband. Set in her traditional ways, Zhao Di is determined to have her husband's body carried home on the shoulders of men instead of being transported home by mechanized vehicle. However, because most of the young people have left the rustic village, there are not enough men to perform such an arduous task. Yet, instead of giving in to the changing times, Zhao Di is not only unwilling to change her mind, but she also makes a cloth for her husband's coffin using her old loom that looks as if it has been in storage for thirty years or so.
The love shared between Zhao Di and Luo Yusheng is well known throughout the village because theirs was a love formed on mutual affection instead of an arranged marriage. Luo Yusheng came to Zhao Di's village in order to teach in the year 1958. Being simple country folk, the villagers are excited to have a city dweller in their ranks. Zhao Di, played by Zhang Ziyi, is the village's most beautiful girl and she falls almost immediately in love with the young teacher. Passing by the schoolhouse each day to hear his voice and planning her trips to gather water so their paths would cross, Zhao Di is obviously smitten with Luo Yusheng. Luckily for her Luo Yusheng seems to share the young girl's affection. However, Luo Yusheng is summoned back to the city because of political trouble and it seems that he might never return. But, promising that he will return Luo leaves Zhao Di. Engulfed by her love for the young teacher, Zhao Di waits on the wintry road for the return of her beloved.
Filmed in the environs of China's countryside, The Road Home is a simple but beautiful movie that uses the splendor of China's countryside to its fullest effect. With the film's gentle soundtrack, the viewer feels as if he or she is transported back to a past that only exists in the realms of nostalgia instead of history. Slow and tender, the film contains a number of scenes that will pull one's heartstrings. One of my favorite scenes is when Zhao Di cleans the schoolhouse. While tidying up the dirty building, Zhao Di is careful not to muss up the teacher's words on the blackboard. Such delicacy really
Movie Review: The Power of Subtlety
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an incomparable film. Many story tellers try to move their audience to reexamine what they thought they knew -- to leave them haunted and deeply touched. Many attempts come off as rather silly and maudlin. Not this film. This film may touch you in a way you didn't think possible.I urge everyone to not try to discover too much about the specifics of this story -- I recommend you simply watch and let the story unfold. Don't be overly curious about the plot -- anyway, this film is not "about" the plot, it's about being human.
The plot of this film is not important in the same way a Rorshach ink blot is not important. But, like the ink blot, this film will reveal something, possibly much, of what is inside the beholder. This film is about something vital to the human experience, and that something is longing.
It's about a longing to reconnect with a purity of feeling and experience. A longing for simplicity in life, and the kind of love between a man and a woman that fulfills in such a way that is all but forgotten in the modern world, but if the instinct is alive inside you, this film will touch what is dormant, and will awaken it.
Watching this film, you may have laid bare an essential quality of the human experience that before was likely untouched, and undiscovered. To have this done is a deeply emotional experience; it is the meaning of the word "epiphany."
All this is accomplished with simplicity, subtlety, and absolutely, magnificently beautiful filming. The crisp autumn air of northern China, the turning leaves, and the almost exclusive use of the low, late afternoon sun, coupled with backlighting and side-lighting creates a visual masterpiece, and contributes greatly to the emotional masterpiece.
Watch this movie, and find out about yourself, if you dare. Recommend it to your friends, especially your lover, and find out about them, if you dare.
Movie Review: A story about understanding
Summary: 5 Stars
More than anything, The Road Home is a story about understanding. More often than not, someone comes up with a seemingly irrational request - but a deeper examination of the reasons behind such a request leads one to a deeper understanding. This form of research celebrates the one thing that makes us human - our sense of place. The movie, although set in rustic China, has universal implications. A son comes back to his where he grew up to assist his mother with funeral arrangement for his recently deceased father. What follows is a flashback that is a tale of devotion, tradition and love. There is nothing complicated about the plot, the movie is 95 percent Zhang Ziyi and the ephemeral Chinese countryside. What is focused on though, is what makes the story different. When Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei) comes back to his village, he discovers his aging mother overwhelmed with anguish over the sudden death of her husband - who has been till then, her constant companion (we do not find out about this until later). His mother insists the son and the village arrange that traditional funeral so her husband can take "The Road Home." The village mayor and the son exchange practical consideration, which effectively convinces the viewer that this is not a very practical thing to do. However, as we get into the story we figure out why it is essential that we follow the mother's request. The shift to the black and white footage is pure genius. As mentioned previously, Zhao Di, (Zhang Ziyi), is the young mother who falls in love with the recently arrived teacher Changyu (Zheng Hao). The movie can tell the story by itself. This temptingly pastoral experience does, on occasion, border on the sentimental. However, the significance of taking the road home give one hope that somewhere we can all find our sense of place - our own road home.Miguel Llora
Movie Review: awesome, touching!
Summary: 5 Stars
What a beautiful movie director Zhang Yimou had made! Very seldom a Chinese movie has touched me, moved me. But this movie had me in tears. The plot is so simple and I don't really care while I was watching it. The amazing cinematography, beautiful music, gorgeous Zhang Ziyi and her incredible performance grasped my attention. The story took place in a northern Chinese village during the time of the Culture Revolution. In this remote and poor village, most people and kids were illiterate. The villagers desperately needed a teacher to teach their kids. Therefore, when a teacher from a city finally came, he became the spotlight of the village. Everybody respected him or even worshipped him. The girl, Zhang Ziyi fell in love with him as soon as she first saw him. But since Chinese, especially a village girl were not used to expressing her feeling towards a man directly, she expressed them silently by making good dishes for him. The teacher knew it and loved her too. There was little conversation between the two lovers. There wasn't any physical contact between them either. But the viewer still feels the strong love between them. After the movie was over, the music, the beautiful winter scenery, and portrait of Zhang Ziyi stayed in my mind for a few days. It's the sweetest, yet saddest, movie I have seen in a long while.
Zhang Ziyi is a young and talented actress. This is her first movie. I think she did a wonderful job. Most Chinese actors/actresses graduate from a formal film school. They are trained to be actors/actresses in a school. Therefore, most of them do ACT in a movie, look very phony with their false acting. But Ziyi is so natural in this movie. She was not acting.