At the heart of a "sixty-somethings" man's life, there is often a yearning for a return to those places which pleased or fascinated him in earlier years (believe me, I know!). This Chinese gentle man (gentleman, too) is determined to go back to his early workplace, while his daughter has wished him to accept the stodgy anonymity of early old age. His odyssey leads him into complications which are never less than fascinating and the director, Zhu Wen, has captured the frustrations and acceptance of the barriers which surround the lead actor. This is a movie which will never feature on most people's "top twenty", but it is an engaging and enthralling look at what most men and women will encounter as they progress through middle age, even if the demands shown on this character are more than the average person will need to cope with!
2 Reviews
You can't go home again...
allenrogerj20 August 2008
Warning: Spoilers
An interesting- sometimes inadvertently interesting- look at contemporary China. Xu Daqin is a retired widower. He shares a flat with his daughter but the rest of the family eat with him regularly- partly for economic reasons. He wants to visit Yunnan, in the South of China, with his closest friend, who went there in his youth. The daughter is a fitness instructor and wants to open her own gym, using Xu's money if she can. The first half of the film establishes Xu's trammelled life and sees his friend taken from him when he meets and decides to marry an elderly lady- first suggested for Xu. Finally, Xu sets off for Yunan. The second half is Xu in Yunan while his daughter has an affair- perhaps she encouraged Xu to go for that very reason; we cannot tell. In a strange scene Xu goes out to visit the matriarchal Moshu tribe and tells of his life- a plan to go to Yunan in his youth which was never fulfilled because he had to marry; an unhappy marriage; early widowhood; raising his children alone; all this, says Xu, is the dream he has had of his life if he hadn't come to Ynan as a young man. No, says the woman he tells it to, no: that is the reality, this is the dream and Xu wakes up in his hotel room. Yet Xu has been speaking Moshu in his dream...., so if the dream was the truth how did he learn it?
Xu tries to 'phone his daughter late at night; she is in her lover's bedroom and ignores the mobile 'phone until it stops; Xu is followed to his room by a young woman who begs money to help her father with kidney dialysis; soft-hearted Xu gives her money and the police raid them. She is a prostitute. Xu will not confess, though that is what will free him and finds himself in a strange limbo; he is under house-arrest in his empty hotel, trusted not to run away by a sympathetic police chief, until- or if- they find the prostitute to check his story. He can do things on those terms- visit the hotel's farm, for example- finally he gets to the lake where the Moshu live... and the film stops, Xu half-laughing half-weeping, deliberately left where perhaps he has been all his life, powerless and at the mercy of others and fate.
Xu tries to 'phone his daughter late at night; she is in her lover's bedroom and ignores the mobile 'phone until it stops; Xu is followed to his room by a young woman who begs money to help her father with kidney dialysis; soft-hearted Xu gives her money and the police raid them. She is a prostitute. Xu will not confess, though that is what will free him and finds himself in a strange limbo; he is under house-arrest in his empty hotel, trusted not to run away by a sympathetic police chief, until- or if- they find the prostitute to check his story. He can do things on those terms- visit the hotel's farm, for example- finally he gets to the lake where the Moshu live... and the film stops, Xu half-laughing half-weeping, deliberately left where perhaps he has been all his life, powerless and at the mercy of others and fate.
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