What, exactly, makes a film “good?” Or even “bad” for that matter? And, more importantly, who gets to make the call? Is it the lover of movies who spends lots of time and money watching art house films? Or maybe the well-regarded film critic with hundreds of reviews under his belt and a scary working knowledge of film canon? Or possibly the newly minted first-time mom alone all day streaming Netflix while the baby sleeps? She doesn’t know Charles Burnett (think, Killer of Sheep. If you haven’t seen it, run. Now.) from . . . but she knows what she likes. Do you ever wonder about this? I do. All the time. “Yeah, that film was awful, just awful,” I’ll hear someone saying, or I’ll read somewhere. “But how can you be so sure?” I think to myself.
As best I can tell, there really is no bright line answer. Because art is so personal. Film is so personal. What touches one person might absolutely repel another. And there’s often no rhyme or reason to it (film canon aside). No exact science. But isn’t that the very thing that makes art great? That it is so personal, so deeply felt, up or down. And in that way you, me, we all get to “say” what good or bad cinema is, at least for us. We, each, get to make the call. So rise up, good people, and be not afraid. Embrace what works for you and discard the rest. It’s okay. It really is.
Which is the perfect segue (INT. INTERWEBS – RUSTLING IN THE BACKGROUND AS SHE STEPS OFF HER SOAP BOX, DISMANTLES IT AND PACKS IT AWAY ☺️) because I’m beyond excited to tell you about one of the most mesmerizing films I’ve seen in a long time. Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home.
Premiering at Cannes in 2014 and with its U.S. release just last month, this film is a gift for the “emotional” senses. Based on the novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi by Geling Yan, with screenplay by Jingzhi Zou, it’s the story of a family torn apart during China’s Cultural Revolution when husband, father, and professor Lu Yanshi (Cheng Daoming) is sent to a labor camp leaving behind wife, Feng Wanyu (Gong Li) and young daughter, Dandan (Zhang Huiwen). Years later Lu escapes the camp and is a fugitive on the run desperate to see his family again. The Chinese police alert Feng and Dandan of Lu’s escape and advise the family to inform them immediately if Lu attempts contact, which he does. He slips a note under the door of the family apartment asking Feng to meet him the following day at the train station. Upon leaving the apartment he runs into Dandan, now a young ballerina in training, and asks her to convince Feng to meet him in the morning. Instead, angry at her father for being the reason she lost out on the lead role in an upcoming ballet, she reports his sighting and his train station whereabouts to the police who apprehend him the next morning as he waits for Feng to appear.
Fast forward three years – the Cultural Revolution has ended, and Lu is released. He returns home to find his wife suffering from amnesia and his daughter working in a textile factory having abandoned her dream of becoming a ballerina. Once reunited, Feng mistakes Lu for someone else and wants nothing to do with him. So Lu takes up residence in an abandoned store across from Feng’s apartment and tries various tactics to help Feng remember their life together. Dandan and family friends also try to help but to no avail. And everything Lu tries only seems to upset Feng more. Until he devises a plan that just might work….
The magic of this film lies in its restraint. What isn’t spoken. What isn’t seen. Owing in no small part to the incredibly fine work of the featured trio of actors and director Zhang Yimou, we can feel deeply the intensity of the love once shared by Feng and Lu though when we meet them, they have been separated for years. Their love remains a powerful, visceral thing even in its absence. And the colors of the film are, too, equally subdued and lacking – the tapestry of brown, beige and gray reflective of Mao Zedong’s anti-imperialist China in the mid-twentieth century. But the hazy patina only serves to enhance the tender love story and highlight the fact that while Feng and Lu’s exterior spaces are muted and listless and gloomy, their interior spaces (their hearts and minds) are alive and ablaze with the passion of a bygone time.
Coming Home is a finely calibrated, beautifully shot film that reminds us of the enduring power of love. See it if you can.