I got around to watching The Road Home a few nights ago. The DVD has been listed on Amazon for a ridiculous £30 for the past three years and I finally managed to track down a second hand copy for less than £5.
I can't remember the last time I had such an enjoyable movie experience, the film was so beautifully made. Everything about it was stunning, I had no idea that the Chinese landscape could look so sumptuously colourful, the cinematography was some of the best I've seen. The interior colour scenes were beautifully lit, as the sun shone through the windows and doorway the whole room seemed to be bathed in exquisite almost sepia tones which reflected the period perfectly.
We saw the beginning and end of a wonderful love story and even though we saw none of the couple's forty years together, the parts we did see were so well acted that we really didn't need to see any more to appreciate the depth of their love for each other.
The dialogue was quite sparse but Ziyi Zhang's facial expressions throughout said so much that it was very easy to empathise and get involved with her character. The way her face lit up every time she saw the teacher in the early part of the film was achingly beautiful to see.
I'm a 65 year old and very few films get me over emotional, but I welled up several times watching this. When she stumbled and broke the bowl, then realised she'd lost the hairclip he gave her, I was almost as distraught as she was. And seeing her standing at the roadside in the freezing weather waiting for the teacher to return, I was aching for her loss. I loved the part where her mother gets the bowl repaired and saw it as symbolic of trying to mend her broken heart. Such a lot of tenderness in the details of that scene.
An absolutely wonderful film that I will never tire of watching.
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