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The Road Home (China) – Fall in Love with Zhang Yimou’s China

The Road Home Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Are you looking for a love story that will warm your heart? Or are you looking to explore rural China and all it’s customs and culture? Either way, check out The Road Home, a beautiful love story set in rural China directed by Zhang Yimou. Currently available to watch here on Amazon (for rent)

Why Watch The Road Home?

If you’re in the mood for a romantic love story
You’re a fan of Zhang Yimou’s martial arts films (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) and you want to see him explore something different
To learn about customs (and superstitions) in rural China
See how different school is in this film

The Breakdown

The first part of The Road Home is shot in the present day in dull black and white. Luo Yusheng arrives at his family home in rural China having traveled from his home in the city. His father has just died, and he’s come home to keep his mum company and sort out the funeral arrangements.

Tradition says you need to carry the dead all the way home whilst shouting out ‘this is the way home’ to remind them how to return. Yusheng’s mum is adamant that he must honor this tradition for their father. However, this tradition has rarely been carried out since the Cultural Revolution in the 60s and 70s. Whilst he’s figuring out what to do with his father’s body, the narrative switches to the story of Lusheng’s parents romantic courtship which has become a legend in their hometown.

Is this film a challenge to the state of Communism in China?

On the surface, The Road Home appears to be a regular love story. But, if you pay a bit more attention, you’ll see an underlying critique of the state of Communism in China.

In The Road Home, Zhang Yimou critiques the loss of culture. You’ll hear this first when the mayor says that the traditional burial mentioned above has not been done since the Cultural Revolution (a subtle jab against the Cultural Revolution for taking away part of Chinese Culture). But, more obviously the critique is present in the film’s portrayal of the past.

Whilst the present is shot in a dull black and white, the past is shot in vibrant colour. The colour reflects the emotion and hope embedded in the past, when the Communist Revolution was still young. In contrast the dull black and white of the present symbolises how the hope and optimism of the Communist Revolution has disintegrated and has taken culture and emotion with it.

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Conclusion & What To Watch Next

The Road Home is a beautiful love story set in rural China. Luckily for all of you who don’t want to settle for pure cheesy romance, there’s much more to this film than initially meets the eye. Because if you look carefully, you’ll see the subtle critique of the direction of Chinese Communism.

If you want more romance, click here to explore all the films under in our Love film category.

Or if you’re looking for more Chinese film, head over to our Chinese film page. We recommend checking out A Touch of Sin for a more brutal depiction of life in contemporary China.

Mimosas (Morocco) – Travel Through the Desert, Mountains, and Time

Mimosas Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Mimosas is a film of epic journeys. There’s Ahmed and Said who are attempting to guide a Sheikh and his caravan across the Moroccan mountains. Secondly there’s the magical journey of Shakib who travels time to guide Ahmed to a more honourable life. Check out a spoiler free trailer below (I’ve deliberately cut the length).

Why Watch Mimosas?

If you’re thinking of going to Morocco but aren’t sure if the scenery is beautiful enough (you’re wrong)
To go on an epic journey through the mountains reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia or Lord of the Rings and an awesome scene with taxis riding across a desert like Mad Max
It won Critic’s Week at Cannes in 2016
Get lost in time as the past and present meet

The Breakdown

Mimosas starts with a few shots of graffiti on a wall of a castle and garden before switching to a few shots of the mountains. As you’ll see later in the film, the graffiti alludes to the modern world (the present) whilst the mountains provides the setting for the past.

After a screen wipe (a blank shot) we are introduced to Ahmed and Said, two guides helping a dying Sheikh to cross the mountains. They are all wearing traditional clothes and half of them are on horseback. These scenes of Ahmed and Said seem to be from at least hundred years ago, probably more.

In contrast, we enter another world in a Moroccan town bordering the mountains (probably the place where the graffiti from the opening scene was shot). It’s here we meet Shakib, preaching about creation fervently to a group of men. It’s present day, evident from the cars and clothing. He’s picked out by one of the head workmen to go with him for an important job: to go into the mountains, find Ahmed and keep him safe.

It’s in his journey into the mountains and meet up with Ahmed that he magically crosses from the present into the past.

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Conclusion

Who is Shakib? And how did he seem to travel time? Is he a prophet? Mimosas depicts the epic journey of Said and Ahmed which is suddenly surpassed by the epic journey of Shakib. You’ll be actively involved in this film as you try to piece together the gaps.

The Crime of Father Amaro (Mexico) – Controversy in the Catholic Church

Crime of Father Amaro Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

If you love controversy with plenty of drama, check out The Crime of Father Amaro. It’s a full frontal attack on the Catholic Church in Mexico which many tried to ban. Whilst it’s not as damaging as Spotlight, it will remind you that all of us are human no matter what position we’re in.

Here’s a dramatic trailer for a dramatic film.

Why Watch Crime of Father Amaro?

It’s controversial – religious groups lobbied to ban it in Mexico but their attempts backfired as the publicity rocketed this film to success at the box office
To see Gabriel Garcia Bernal (famous for Y Tu Mama Tambien, No, Motorcycle Diaries and many more)
If you love a bit of melodrama
It was Oscar nominated for best foreign language picture

The Breakdown

The opening of the film deliberately leads us to sympathize with the young Father Amaro (Garcia Bernal). Firstly, he’s charitable. When the elderly man he sits next to on the bus is robbed, he reimburses him with his own money. Secondly, he appears friendly. The local kids run around him after he playfully grabs their football and he chills with the fellow pastors to watch football on TV. He has all the makings of a great guy. However, the melodrama slowly kicks to life as he begins to take advantage of one of the parish girls who is clearly infatuated with him.

There are plenty of omens that something is going to go wrong. Firstly, you’ll notice that wherever Father Amaro is, the statues of the Saints and Jesus are always watching him. There’s a statue of Jesus that watches over him at home, from his bedside table. Furthermore, the director makes sure you notice each of the saints looking down at him whenever he is in the church by cutting to static shots of each one as he walks down the aisle. Nothing he does escapes from their view.

Secondly, the saints have a helper in a crazy old woman aptly named Dionisia after the Greek God Dionysus, the God of Wine, as well as ritual madness and religious ecstasy. It’s clear that Dionisia is both mad and madly religious. In addition, she also comparable to the witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. She predicts the love affair between Father Amaro and Amelia.

The two omens (the Saints and Dionisia) are both critiques of Catholicism. Firstly, of all the sins that are committed in plain sight of the saints and then confessed the next day. And secondly, of how it is interpreted by the population (Dionisia has malformed dolls posing as Saints, and tries to exorcise her disabled neighbor).

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Conclusion

The Crime of Father Amaro is another great controversial melodrama from Mexico. It attacks the Catholic Church it’s hypocrisies, so it’s not surprising that Catholic groups tried to ban it. Unfortunately for them, the controversy propelled it to become the biggest film in Mexico.

If you want even more religious controversy, check out Oscar winner Spotlight. However, if you want blatant provocation, check out the Mexican film Battle in Heaven. If you want to see some more great Mexican film, check out our Top Ten Mexican Films here.

Three Lives and Only One Death (France) – Enter a Dream World+

Three Lives and Only One Death Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Do you want to get lost in reality? Try watching Three Lives and Only One Death. It follows Marcello Mastroianni as a character that spans a few storylines in and around Paris. At times the story lines seem normal, but before long you’ll realise that they are just illusions. See if you can find your way around Raul Ruiz’s world – free to watch here on YouTube.

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Why Watch Three Lives and Only One Death?

If you like your films mysterious (think David Lynch or Ingmar Bergman)
For Marcello Mastroianni in one of his last roles (the great actor from La Dolce Vita, Divorce: Italian Style, and many more)
To question your own reality
You can watch it here on YouTube

The Breakdown

A narrator that looks like a late night news anchor starts the film. As he starts narrating about a man who wakes up because of a baby crying, we see the man he is talking about. The narrator tells us that the man has a headache and goes to the pharmacy, and then, as if controlled by the narrator, the man on screen does the same.

In the pharmacy queue, another man starts talking to our protagonist. It starts off like the normal expected small talk before becoming much more unnerving for our protagonist. This stranger reveals that he knows exactly where this man lives, who he is, and who his wife is. Our protagonist wants to get away from him but the man offers him a lot of money just to sit down and chat with him.

From then on, it gets even weirder. The man reveals that he was the previous husband of our protagonists wife. He tells him he didn’t disappear for 20 years but rather lost 20 years of his time watching these little fairies (yes that wasn’t a typo). He even takes our protagonist into another room to show him these fairies. At this point the camera goes completely red and zooms in and out to disorientate us. Where are we? And what is real? Only the director Raul Ruiz knows!

Conclusion

You’ll experience a lot more of the unnerving world that Raul Ruiz has created if you watch the full film. There’s plenty of things to throw you off. Just like in the great David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman films you’ll be questioning a lot by the end of this film, but it is a great ride!

Flesh Out – Eat More to Become More Beautiful

fLESH oUT Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Verida is getting married, and in Mauritania, that means she has to fatten up before the wedding to make sure she’s as beautiful as possible. You’ll get eat all the bowls of cous cous and meat with her on her journey to becoming a big beautiful woman. Flesh Out is a well made portrait of a woman caught in a culture that clashes with modernisation.

From: Mauritania, Africa 
Watch: TBC - IMDb Page
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