Lecture 10 - The Road Home

A. Introduction

The Road Home is a film that seeks to address contemporary China with a message:

An appeal to present-day China to return to the deeper values and ideals that are part of China’s past

Reinforced by use of cinematography

A1. Zhang Yimou

Trademarks:

1. A strong female protagonist who goes against social prohibitions
2. The use of colour, especially, vibrant colours to signify passion and emotion

Theory:

1. Films should be “very common and popular”
   • To address vast Chinese nation
2. Films should address the emotions and the senses
   • Subject matter should be simple so that the emotions can be clearly foregrounded

B. Themes in The Road Home

B1. Critique of Modern China

• Modern Chinese society has lost its direction
• The market economy dominates everything and Chinese people have become ultra-materialistic
• Society and the arts have become boring and devitalized, lacking in passion and vitality
• “We want to remain true to ourselves but how should we do that?”

C. Film-making in The Road Home

C1. Cinematography

Zhang uses the senses and emotions to appeal to and inspire the viewer

Main idea: The past has a vitality that today’s materialistic China lacks

C1-i. Contemporary scenes

Black and White:

• Helps to reinforce Zhang Yimou’s negative perception of contemporary, capitalist China
• Drab, lacking in vitality

E.g. Schoolhouse scene at the end

- Red banner, in black and white, is barely noticeable -> reinforces how drab and devitalized modern day China has become

C1-ii. Past scenes

In color

E.g.

- Red banner is vibrant and vivid in color
- Shot of Zhao Di in red sweater contrasts against the gray landscape and road

• Representing passion and tenacity needed to travel the road
• The vibrant colours counter the emotional repression of the Chinese people
• “Red” reflects freedom and exuberance as well as primal desires and aspirations, denied by both Confucianism and Communism.

  E.g. Red sweater
  

C2. Mise-en-scene and Props

Things/physical objects are linked to materialism, the pursuit of things that deaden the human spirit

C2-i. Different historical eras

Used to indicate China’s different historical eras, in particular its different political and economic systems

Posters of Titanic (1997)

An icon of American popular culture and global capitalism

• How China is plugged into the global free-market economy
• China as being under 2 different regimes at different times
  • State control versus pressures of global market economy
  • In different eras, subject ti communist propoganda OR “cultural indoctrination” of US mass culture

Posters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

• How China is under the Communist state with a centrally planned economy

C2-ii. Different values

(From the current shallow materialistic values)

Zhao Di’s bowl

• Repaired slowly
• Suggests the difference between a bowl that is “personalized” and one that is mass produced in a market economy
• The skill of repairing the bowl: an art that is vanishing in present-day China

Zhao Di’s hairpin, loom

• Where things do not deaden the person, but reflect the passion, vitality and strength of characters

C3. Motifs

C3-i. The Road

• Film opens and closes with images of The Road

E.g. Contrast

Opening shot: vehicle travelling down road, contemporary times
Closing shot: Zhao Di running down the road

• 2 Levels:
  1. A course of hardship for individuals, yet it allows individuals to display their character qualities
     • Perseverance, tenacity, devotion, passion
  2. Symbolic of the course that the Chinese nation ought to take
     • Relates its past strengths and values more meaningfully with its present

        E.g. Connects city to the village
       

C3-ii. Schoolhouse

• The schoolhouse is built by the people.
• We see the schoolhouse at the start and at the end, it will be re-built
• A symbol for China