The
Road Home (Wo de fu qin mu qin), a film from China
based on a novel by Bao Shi, refers to a dirt road from a
town to Sanhetun, a mountain village in North China. At the
beginning of the movie thirtysomething Luo Changyu (played
by Zheng Hao) visits his mother (taking the same road, though
he works in a city farther away) because his father has died
at the age of 60 due to exhaustion while trying to raise money
in surrounding towns to build a new schoolhouse. Changyu has
not been to his home village in several years, but he has
become relatively prosperous. Upon arriving in the village,
the mayor tells him that his 58-year-old mother Zhao Di (played
by Zhao Yuelin) wants to follow the traditional custom of
having pall bearers carry the coffin from the mortuary in
town to the village for burial. Since most of the young men
have gone away for gainful employment, there are only feeble
older people and young children to carry out the task, the
mayor informs Changyu. When Changyu asks his mother to change
her mind, she insists on observing the custom and even begins
to weave a shroud for the coffin, using a loom that had long
been put aside. Changyu then provides occasional voiceovers
to accompany a tale of a sentimental love affair, related
to him by his mother, with music so touching that many filmviewers
will not be able to leave the movie with dry eyes. The story,
stretching over a period from 1957, also tells much about
changes in China that have affected even the most remote village.
The romance starts with a teenage Zhao Di (played by Zhang
Ziyi), the prettiest girl in the village, who falls in love
with twenty-year-old Luo Yusheng (played by Sun Honglei),
who arrives as the first teacher for the village. After doing
everything possible to get the teacher’s attention, he realizes
how much she loves him. One day he is told to report to the
nearby town for questioning, and he is detained. Di then patiently
awaits his return, almost as a Madame Butterfly. When he fails
to come back at the expected time, she tries to visit him
in town but falls on the snowbound road and nearly dies. Yusheng
escapes one day to see her, but suffers a two-year imprisonment
for the escape. Finally, he returns, they marry (the first
in the village to do so without a marriage broker), and for
nearly forty years they live in happiness. Changyu, having
heard the story of the romance, agrees that the custom of
bringing the coffin home on foot must be observed. Although
Changyu invites Di to live with him in the city, she declines,
wanting to be near her husband’s grave. Di even recalls that
his father always wanted his son to replace him as the village
teacher when he died; though Changyu went to teacher’s college,
he took up another career. Di then says that he will make
his deceased father happy by at least teaching in the old
schoolhouse one day before returning to the city. Although
he is willing to pay the equivalent of US$600 to hire 36 men
from the nearby town to carry the coffin in shifts, along
with liquid refreshments, Yusheng’s former students and friends
agree to do so without payment, preferring that the money
be used to build the new school. The following day Changyu
conducts class in the old schoolhouse, using a textbook that
Yusheng himself wrote, reciting the same words that were spoken
by teacher and students on the very first day when he began
to teach in the village. Behind the touching story, directed
by Zhang Yimou, we realize how many customs are dying out
in the new prosperous China, and we see how the picture of
Chairman Mao in the school has been replaced by a Chinese
flag. At the same time, the prosperity of contemporary China
has not yet improved conditions in a remote village, a reminder
to filmviewers in the People’s Republic that should not neglect
their relatives in the provinces. Yet we also see how the
Communist revolution brought education to the rural masses,
resulting in upward mobility for those who began their education
in one-room schoolhouses with dedicated students and teachers.
MH
I
want to comment on this film
