COMING HOME (Yimou Zhang). 109 minutes. Subtitled. Rating: NNN
Away From Her meets Doctor Zhivago in Zhang Yimou’s stirring, melodramatic period piece set against China’s Cultural Revolution.
Chen Daoming stars as Lu, a “rightist” political prisoner released after more than a decade to find his family torn apart and his wife, Feng (Gong Li), suffering from amnesia and unable to recognize him. Her condition makes an apt metaphor for a past that is wilfully forgotten while the trauma still lingers. Unfortunately, the movie lingers a bit as well.
A prologue that introduces us to the main players three years earlier caters to Zhang’s strengths with picturesque dance choreography and a suspenseful standoff between family and authorities. In a costly act of adolescent revolt, Lu’s daughter Dandan (Zhang Huiwen), an aspiring ballerina, sets the stage for a melancholic, bittersweet reunion.
The film shows political upheaval’s impact on intimate relationships, but things get redundant and operatic. The screenplay often overplays key dramatic revelations, and the score bangs on those piano chords too hard, as if trying to drown out Gong and Chen’s quietly wrenching performances.