Coming Home review: A story of love and loss that is also a poetic parable about contemporary China

With opulent blockbusters like Hero and House of Flying Daggers to his credit – in which curtains float, people fly, flags flutter and robes billow – Chinese director Zhang Yimou is the last person most would associate with a small budget film. However, Zhang cast aside all the grandeur and extravagance of wuxia films to make Coming Home, a story about a family that contains a beautiful parable about contemporary China. Feng (Gong Li) is a school teacher who is married to Lu (Chen Daoming), a college professor. Lu, with his dabbling knowledge of French and love for playing the piano, is sent of for “re-education” to a labour camp in the 1970s. Far away from Lu, Feng brings up their daughter Dandan, a precocious young woman who dreams of being a ballerina. When Lu escapes, he comes back home, but the door is locked and he’s spotted by Dandan who recognises her father only from photographs. Resentful of the man who causes her and her mother nothing but trouble, Dandan informs the party of Lu’s arrival. Lu is caught and sent back to the labour camp. [caption id=“attachment_1775087” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Courtesy: Youtube[/caption] Three years after the Cultural Revolution, Lu is released and allowed to return. However, nothing at home is how he expected it would be. Dandan has given up ballet and works in a factory. Feng suffers from partial amnesia – her love for Lu fills every nook and cranny of her existence, yet she cannot recognize the aged Lu when he stands before her. Lu tries different tactics to make Feng see he is the husband to whom she has remained faithful, but all they serve to do is reveal to Lu how Feng and Dandan’s lives were devastated while he was away. Coming Home is mostly set in one little apartment and at the train station, where Feng goes every month in hope of receiving Lu. The sunshine is pale, white frost and cold breath fill frames, the clothing is grey – there’s no space for flamboyance or colour in this world that is nonetheless beautiful and haunting. On the surface, Feng, Lu and Dandan’s is a love story that stumbles upon guilt while searching for reconciliation. That would be poignant enough, but embedded in this simple masterpiece by Zhang is an allegory that casts light upon contemporary China. In many ways, with its simplicity and symbolism, Coming Home is reminiscent of Iranian cinema, which has turned the trick of presenting innocent stories that are actually sharp parables criticising the status quo, into a fine art. For instance, considering China’s reputation as a manufacturing base, it can’t be a coincidence that Dandan gives up the rigour and creativity of ballet for the equally rigorous but monotonous existence of being a factory worker. Feng with her suppressed memories, amnesia and guilt, offers a breathtaking parallel to contemporary China. Lu’s efforts to make her see him – not as a stranger but as the past she thinks she remembers but doesn’t actually know anymore – is utterly heartbreaking. With every attempt, you hope and pray that Feng will recognise Lu this time and the two of them will live happily ever after. But in a country of destroyed records and fabricated histories, how do you make out the real from the lies? It’s the creative arts that Lu ultimately falls back upon to cut through the miasma of guilt and anxiety that swamps Feng’s memory. Through first music and then words, Lu finds a way to bridge the divide between Feng and himself. It’s not a perfect reconciliation, but it is a tentative step towards happiness and stability. Zhang, who was last in the Chinese news because he and his wife were fined $1.2 million by the family planning bureau for violating the one-child policy, made Coming Home with hope that Chinese audiences will listen to local storytellers who don’t have fantasies to sell. " I made this film to test the market," he said in an interview. “If we fail, we’ll just curse a little and forget it, but if it does OK, it will give us confidence.” When it released in China, Coming Home became a huge hit, making more than $3 million on its opening day. It’s as happy an ending as you could hope for, for Feng and Lu’s story.