Shot
right after Not One Less, his
Venice prizewinner, The Road Home
shows another side of Zhang Yimou. In earlier
films, his romantic streak has always been offset
by an underlying fatalism, but here in
a celebration of the values he fears China is
losing he gives it free rein.
In
a small northern village, the widow of a teacher
insists that all the local
funeral traditions be upheld, no matter how
dated or inconvenient they seem. Observing her
grief-stricken intransigence, her only son (who
left the village long ago to work in the city)
recalls the story of his parents' courtship
in the 1950s.
Zhang
sees China's present in grey monochrome but
devotes most of the film to flashbacks in
rapturous colour.
Despite
the fraught politics of the past, he suggests,
people used to be emotionally tougher and more
true to each other.
by
Zhang
Yimou