The Road Home

 For the Asian/Asian-American cinema chat club, we watched The Road Home (1999) directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Zhang Ziyi in her screen debut. A gorgeous film, it frames the love story of a village girl and the new schoolteacher with the story of how their son returns after the man's death and tries to satisfy his mother's demand for a traditional funeral procession, in which people would carry the coffin from the hospital back to the village. Because so many young people have left to work in the city, it seems there won't be enough to carry out her wishes, so the son attempts to hire men from a neighboring town. The black-and-white present-day tale, a snapshot of a society in transition and in which the old ways are being abandoned,  lovingly frames the son's narration of his mother and father's courtship, filmed in color. When a new teacher comes to the village, the two young people see each other and are enamored without words. She woos him with food; he gives her a hair clip--so chaste! In a social world of arranged marriages, theirs is a love match. Through the materiality of daily life in a pre-modern rural village, Zhang evokes values that he seems to want his viewers to recall, just as he shows how the villagers will return for the burial procession out of respect for their former teacher. But is this just nostalgia for village rural life, or should we also notice that he portrays a relationship that stands in contrast to the norms of village life for being the result of the woman's desire, initiative, and stubbornness?

Barely have the two managed to acknowledge their interest in each other when they are separated, as he is called back to the city. Although no clear explanation is given, it is likely that it is for political reasons that he is first called back, and then punished for two years because he tried to return to the village when he heard she fell ill waiting for him in the snow. But he does return, they marry, and we see how her devotion to him after his death is as fierce and stubborn as was her determination to make sure he noticed her fetching water from the well near the school. 

You can either see this as a pure and simple love story as do most of the reviewers on Letterboxd, or as nostalgic schmalz, as do a few cynics (including one of my chat group colleagues). Or both. Sometimes we just want our pure and simple beautifully filmed schmalz.