Let's
stick with Asia for China's 2000 flick, THE ROAD HOME. Sun Honglei stars as a
young man returning to the village of his parents after the death of his
father. His mother (Zhao Yulian) insists on transporting his father's coffin
back to the village by foot, afraid his spirit will not be able to find its way
home otherwise. In preparation, she begins slaving over a loom to weave a cover
for the coffin.
From
here we travel back in time to see the story of the mother and father's
courtship. The mother is an eighteen-year-old girl (Zhang Ziyi) living in a
small village with her mother (Li Bin) when the village's first teacher ever
comes to stay (Zhen Hao).
The
whole village comes together to build a school for the teacher and children,
and the young girl takes an immediate liking to him, altering her route to a
different well on the other side of the village so she can pass the school on
her way to get water. She also hangs around in the hills outside of town so she
can "run into" the teacher as he walks children home from school.
The
teacher takes a liking to her, as well, and soon the two of them are contriving
ways to meet each other. The young girl gets her best chance when the teacher's
rotating dinner brings him to her home, where she cooks her heart out in an
attempt to win his love.
Unfortunately,
the teacher is mysteriously called back to the city, and so begins the young
girl's long separation from him, waiting forlornly by the road, even in the
snow, hoping for him to return.
The
long courtship becomes legendary in the town and eventually reaches a sweet
conclusion, returning us to the present day and the funeral preparations.
The
present day scenes are shot in black and white, to contrast with the bulk of
the movie, which takes place in flashback, in the Chinese countryside. The
photography and scenery are beautiful, and so is Zhang Ziyi – this is by far
the prettiest film of Romancefest 2015 so far. It's also the sweetest.
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