The movie moved me to tears unexpectedly; I didn't think that a simple story set in rural China was going to touch my heart. Undoubtedly, it's going to remain one of my favourite films. It was a story of love set in the 1950s in rural China, between Zhuo Di (Zhang Ziyi) and the village teacher. The story starts off in black and white, with a business man on his way back to the rural village of his birth to take care of his father's funeral. He comes back to find a grief stricken mother who insists that her deceased husband be carried by men on foot from the morgue in the city back to the village by a long winding road. Through preparation for his father's funeral, he narrates the story of his parents' love, which bursts forth in rich colours onscreen, emblemed in the enigmatic child-like wonder of Zhang Ziyi's delicate features. Her role as Di is captivating; an illiterate 18yr old girl who falls in love at first sight with the village teacher.
Finally, a picture of a couple who love each other simply because they fall in love; not because they were 2 individuals seeking love in an alienating city, nor because of lust or emptiness of loneliness or idealized notions of love. A love story that lasts 40 years and refuses to end even with death. A love that can withstand the test of time and unmet expectations, because of the faith that they loved each other.
To think that the modern single talks about managing expectations and moving on to the next possibility of love. As if love was instant food that had to gratify or else; as if breaking up and divorce and "we fell out of love" was the norm. I think the modern man has lost something true, something pure, something that lasts. Perhaps it was the fact that we think our possibilities are endless, that we can afford to play the field a little longer, that we have the faculty of choice, that we deserve only the best, that we will only know if we love one another if we "try it out". The irony is that all these chasing after what we think is the formula for true love only pushes it further and further into the realm of imagination and ultimate frustration.
I just ask for that simplicity. I hope it's possible.
Finally, a picture of a couple who love each other simply because they fall in love; not because they were 2 individuals seeking love in an alienating city, nor because of lust or emptiness of loneliness or idealized notions of love. A love story that lasts 40 years and refuses to end even with death. A love that can withstand the test of time and unmet expectations, because of the faith that they loved each other.
To think that the modern single talks about managing expectations and moving on to the next possibility of love. As if love was instant food that had to gratify or else; as if breaking up and divorce and "we fell out of love" was the norm. I think the modern man has lost something true, something pure, something that lasts. Perhaps it was the fact that we think our possibilities are endless, that we can afford to play the field a little longer, that we have the faculty of choice, that we deserve only the best, that we will only know if we love one another if we "try it out". The irony is that all these chasing after what we think is the formula for true love only pushes it further and further into the realm of imagination and ultimate frustration.
I just ask for that simplicity. I hope it's possible.