The Pleasures of the Analog Life / Film: Coming Home, directed by Zhang Yimou
Is this a foreshadowing of
marital relationships in the era of the 100-year life?
Should I call it a film that refuses to move you? I am referring to Coming Home (2014), directed by Zhang Yimou. Despite the story having every potential to make the audience cry if the director intended to chase box office success (especially for someone like me with tear ducts that are easily triggered), every time a wave of emotion begins to well up, the distance is suddenly pulled away as if to avoid it, leaving one with a sense of unresolved frustration...
After the Chinese Cultural Revolution ends, a former university professor (Chen Daoming) who had been engaged in forced labor in the remote western regions returns home after 20 years. During this time, his wife (Gong Li), who had been waiting desperately for his return, cannot forgive the daughter who once reported her father to the authorities. Living alone in an apartment, she has developed a mental illness and cannot recognize the man she has finally reunited with as her husband. Consequently, the husband, with the help of his estranged daughter, tries every trick in the book to restore his wife's memory. If the goal were to satisfy the audience's desire for emotional catharsis, the wife could simply accept his devoted attitude, reconcile with her daughter, and hint at the restoration of the three-person family. I, for one, would be sobbing.
However, this film is built upon a foundation that completely rejects such sentimental drama. To reveal the ending: the wife's memory never returns, and while she loves her husband, she stubbornly rejects the man standing before her. The final scene ends with the now-aged couple going to the train station that day, just as they do every day, holding up a placard with the husband's name written on it, waiting for his return.
In an interview included in the bonus features of the DVD I have, director Zhang Yimou says, "You don't need to worry about the background of the Cultural Revolution. This is a story that could happen in any era. I just want you to focus on the story itself." Such events could happen in any era? Surely not. On the contrary, perhaps it has more relevance to the modern day, nearly half a century later, than it did in the 1970s immediately following the Cultural Revolution.
In recent years, the "100-year life" has been widely touted in Japan. Of course, the emergence of a world-leading longevity society, coupled with remarkable advances in medical technology, is something to be celebrated. On the other hand, aren't the visions of marriage and parent-child relationships that we hold in our minds still those established in an era when the average lifespan was 50 years? The truth is that we have been forcing ourselves to maintain those simple visions, even after we have long since entered the era of the 80-year life.
As someone who has unexpectedly experienced both divorce and remarriage, I cannot help but hear the groans of these family visions amidst the currents of the times, while being acutely aware of my own shortcomings. If, in a 100-year life, a man and woman marry at 25 and see their children become independent at 50, that leaves 50 years of life as a couple after those initial 25 years. No matter how sincerely one might vow to be a lifelong partner at a wedding ceremony, who can truly be certain about such a distant future? From the children's perspective, the situation where their parents are still present for 50 years after they have become independent must be beyond their imagination.
What will happen with the arrival of the 100-year life is that the gap between the emotional relationship and the survival relationship of couples and parents and children will inevitably widen. I am not saying that divorce and remarriage tailored to the phases of life are the solution. But then, how should couples and parents and children face each other? Was what director Zhang Yimou presented not a sincere question posed to this future from China, which is currently experiencing an aging society at a speed even faster than Japan's?