The Urge to Remember

Heading off a three-year hiatus in film work, Coming Home is acclaimed film director Zhang Yimou's reentry to cinema with the adaptation of famous writer Yan Geling's novel, The Criminal Lu Yanshi. While opinions remain divided, it is one of the most important films of the year.

The film is a stylized meditation on the history of the Cultural Revolution. In many respects it is notably reminiscent of the 1986 film, Hibiscus Town, directed by the late director Xie Jin. Chen Daoming plays a rightist sent away for reeducation, similar to the full-blown tragedy of Hibiscus Town in which the female protagonist must face a series of lacerating sorrows. Coming Home does not go so far as to uncover any of the hushed history of the time.Forty years later, the subject matter remains contested territory, but telling the story of even a small family during that time can have an effect on how these events are depicted.