FILM REVIEW: COMING HOME

Dan Dan (Huiwen Zhang) in Coming Home. Photo Credit: Bai XiaoYan.

Frozen, forgotten and finished

By John Esther

Taking vulgar, ideological populism to its extreme, China's Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s imprisoned thousands of intellectuals who were perceived as "counter-revolutionary" effete bourgeois elements who were trying to bring back capitalism to China.

This Cultural Revolution measure, along with thousands of other counterproductive ones, tore families and lives apart. Based on ending of Geling Yan's novel, The Criminal Lu Yanshi, the latest film by Yimou Zhang (Ju Dou; To Live; House of the Flying Daggers) cast two of China's finest actors to relay a story about two people who were sacrificed in the name of ideological purity.

One night, Feng Wanyu (Li Gong -- shedding her beauty as much as she can for the role), a teacher in a provinical town returns home where members of Red Guard surround her, asking if she knows the whereabouts of her recently escaped husband. Feng answers them honestly.

Recently escaped, her husband, Lu Yanshi (Daoming Chen), a professor with alleged counter-revolutionary sentiments is making his way back to their home, but he must do it in secret. Both will be in serious trouble if they are caught.

Meanwhile, their teenage daughter, Dan Dan (Huiwen Zhang) aspires to be the lead dancer in the ballet production of The Red Detachment of Women (Rise up, ye poor working women). Unfortunately, her father's escape threatens Dan Dan's chances. Dan Dan may be the best dancer in the class, but ideology trumps talent. If Dan Dan wants the role, she better do wrong to dad and mom.

In such a culture of despair and fear, the relentlessly ambitious and shortsighted ones are inclined to report whatever knowledge she or he possess if it pleases the powers that be. This can include a best friend or a daughter. 

Years later, Lu Yanshi returns home, again. However, family life has changed drastically. Family members no longer recognize their loved ones the way they used to -- literally and metaphorically.

The one who suffers the most is Feng Wanyu. The Cultural Revolution has taken her mind (in ways not intended) and she will never be the same. Lu Yanshi and Dan Dan work together to try and save her, but the damage may be too great.

The second half of the film deals with Feng Wanyu's "disease." Obviously, her condition is a metaphor for the masses of people of China, who would rather not, perhaps cannot, remember how gullible, raped and complacent they were for an ideology which never came near achievingwhat it pretended to promise.

While the film belabors its points, director Yimou, along with director of photography, Xiaoding Zhao, accomplishes its motives with serenity rather than intensity. The mise-en-scène focuses on details and atmosphere rather than demagoguery and action as it recreates a time of fear and collective denial. The acting conveys the pain of the family (and larger milieu) without resorting to wails of despair (although plenty of tears drop).

In other words, this is politically-fueled melodrama of a higher order.