The pictures do the talking in The Road Home; it is like Zhang's last film, Not One Less, without the pretence of docudrama. There's almost no way to discuss it except to gawk verbally, which isn't a shame exactly (the world can always use a pretty movie), but one's patience is tried by The Road Home's Brechtian tendencies: little happens that we weren't well-prepared for either by redundant narration or a disengaging flashback structure. As gorgeous as Hou Yong's telephoto cinematography is, the images are unsupported by storytelling of any particular gravity and thus amount to a succession of Chinese postcards.

The narrative does have a unique hook: a son's objective reminiscence of his spinster (as in weaving) mother and schoolteacher father when they were strangers in the same village, the film restricts itself to the Technicolor days leading up to the couple's union, sparing us the greatest hits compilation of scenes from a marriage. Instead, we have the simple poetry of flirting, of Zhao Di (the lovely ingenue Zhang Ziyi, pre-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--although the film was released afterwards internationally) cooking for a potluck, eager for husband-to-be Luo Changyu (Zheng Hao) to choose her dish.

It is refreshing to see the pursuit of a relationship from the woman's perspective, even if a man is telling the tale, but it's all just a means to an end against a breathtaking golden backdrop. Class differences between Zhao Di and Luo Changyu, "a city gentleman," are brushed aside by handsome dissolves, while the teacher's political business back home becomes a mere catalyst for the passage of time. The Road Home is a film of very conscious brevity that, like the decision to shoot the framing device (of Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei), Di and Changyu's only offspring, arranging a ritualistic transport of his father's coffin at his mother's behest) in black-and-white, borders on banal. I've no doubt that those afraid to criticize an undisputed poet of the cinema will prefer to call it "mature."

Issues of slight edge-enhancement and some flicker during the present-day sequences aside, the 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer on Columbia Tri-Star's DVD presentation of The Road Home assuages those of us who missed the boldly saturated vistas on the big screen. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix (in Mandarin) is as subdued as one would expect--I can't recall a single surround effect, not that it's an issue. A slim offering of cast and filmmaker bios plus trailers for The Road Home, Not One Less, Shanghai Triad, The Story of Qiu Ju, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon round out the impressive-looking disc.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day