Next in my Zhang Yimou retrospective, I watch Coming Home
Coming Home (2014), directed by Zhang Yimou and written by Zou Jingzhi, functions effectively as a thematic sequel to Zhang’s 2010 movie Under the Hawthorn Tree. Both movies focus on a romance: one between very young people in Under the Hawthorn Tree and one between middle-aged people in Coming Home.
The two movies deal with relationship issues typical of their respective characters’ times in life. The young characters in Hawthorn Tree must grapple with how seriously to take their budding relationship in light of how little they know each other yet and their mutual uncertainty about their futures. The older characters must grapple with how to maintain a long-lasting relationship in light of life’s changes and a different type of uncertainty about the future, the uncertainty created by failing health.
The basic situations and themes in both movies are likely familiar to people from a variety of cultures and eras. Yet both movies also introduce a distinctively Chinese, 20th-century element: the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the characters.
Based on a novel by Yan Geling, Coming Home is the story of a small family: father Lu (Chen Daoming), mother Yu (Gong Li), and teenage daughter Dandan (Zhang Huiwen). The parents are both teachers, while Dandan is an aspiring ballerina. However, their household is, in a sense, a broken one: when the movie opens, Lu has been in prison for many years. The exact reasons for Lu’s imprisonment are never specified, but presumably he has fallen afoul of the ongoing Cultural Revolution’s hunt for the ideologically suspect (one authority figure refers to Lu as a “rightist”).
Dandan, who barely remembers her long-imprisoned father and is anxious not to lose her own place in the community, is ready to denounce and forget Lu. The quiet-but-determined Yu is not going to give up on her husband, though, regardless of what the authorities may say.
The situation comes to a crisis when Lu escapes from prison in a desperate attempt to get home. Yu and Dandan each react in their own ways to the news of Lu’s escape, with Yu seeking reunion with her husband and Dandan seeking to protect herself.
In a different kind of movie, Lu’s escape from prison would be the climax. In Coming Home, though, it is merely the set-up. Lu is quickly apprehended by the authorities and sent back to prison. The rest of the movie is concerned with the aftermath of the escape attempt and his larger imprisonment and how these events affect the family.
Once the Cultural Revolution ends, Lu is officially released from prison and returns home to try to put his life back together. Upon returning, though, he is met by two tragic surprises.
First, Yu and Dandan are now estranged, because of their differing responses to his imprisonment and attempted escape. Second, Yu now appears to be experiencing a form of dementia that prevents her from recognizing her husband. (The movie is vague about the nature of Yu’s condition but implies it might be partly the result of the events surrounding Lu’s escape attempt.)
Despite these personal reversals, Lu is determined to put his family back together. As he settles back into life in their hometown, he tries to find a way to reconnect with his wife and daughter and reconcile them with each other.
Meanwhile, Yu is also determined, in her own way, to restore her family. Having been informed that her husband has been released from prison, she regularly goes to the local train station to await his return home—unaware he already is home.
Coming Home is a very simple, spare movie. With a cast of just three significant characters, the movie takes place in a few locations (apartments, streets, the train station) within a small town and mainly consists of dialogue scenes. The story could easily be told as a stage play.
The heart of the movie is the characters and their interactions. Good performances are crucial to the success of such a movie, and the actors deliver here. Chen Daoming and Gong Li give carefully restrained performances, reflecting Lu and Yu’s reserved, cautious natures, yet they always convey the emotions beneath the surface. Gong also convincingly captures Yu’s dementia and her efforts to go about her daily life despite her declining faculties. Zhang Huiwen gives a more demonstrative performance, but this fits with Dandan’s callow character.
Another crucial factor is also how this material is presented. Like the actors, Zhang and screenwriter Zou take an understated approach. Coming Home does not use the cinema verité style Zhang has favored in other movies—cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding instead employs extreme close-ups, fluid camera movements, and stark lighting—but it does not try to hammer home the story’s drama either.
The movie has a leisurely pace and contains significant passages with little or no dialogue. Not every plot point or emotion is spelled out for us; the filmmakers leave us to fill in some of these blanks. Not all important moments are underlined with musical cues or other cinematic markers of significance. For example, a revelatory conversation between Lu and Dandan is presented in a matter-of-fact way, without either character giving away much emotion.
Further, although Coming Home is partly about a political and historical tragedy, the movie avoids an angry tone. We are shown Communist Party functionaries fulfilling cruel policies, but none of the actors play the functionaries in an overtly villainous way. They come across as ordinary people, even as they carry out extraordinary orders.
This approach to the story’s politics is used to powerful effect in one scene toward the end of the movie. Lu goes to confront a character who seems as though he might fulfill the role of an overt villain. He soon learns, though, that the “villain” is also a victim in his own way. (Chen Daoming’s quiet reaction to this information is masterful.)
The Cultural Revolution comes across here as a faceless, impersonal blight on the characters’ lives. This gives the movie a mood that is less angry than melancholy.
As befits an intimate family study, Coming Home is full of small but memorable moments. Stand-outs include an early, tense scene where Lu knocks on the door of their apartment and Yu considers whether or how to answer; the awkward first conversation between the husband and wife after his official release from prison, in which Yu’s politeness initially masks her inability to recognize Lu; or a wordless scene in which Lu plays the old piano in their apartment.
I appreciated other telling details the filmmakers include, such as how the newly escaped Lu pauses to wipe the grime off his face, both to be more easily recognized by Yu and also, one suspects, simply to be more presentable to his wife. At another point, Dandan shares with Lu the family photo albums, and their state tells us much about what has happened to the family over the years.
Although the emphasis in Coming Home is on character moments, Zhang and cinematographer Zhao still deliver some memorable images: the escaped Lu creeping across a roof during the night; the family apartment bathed in pale sunlight; the empty, snow-covered streets of the town in winter. The glimpses we get of Dandan and her classmates’ dance rehearsals and performances also add a dash of flamboyance to this otherwise buttoned-down tale.
Coming Home’s quiet, deliberate approach ultimately pays off in a final scene of extraordinary power. Played entirely without dialogue, the movie’s conclusion could be viewed as sad beyond belief. Or it could be viewed as a display of extraordinary fidelity and love.
The Cameraman 