Coming homePosted by Winther Marquez on January 31st, 2021 One of the last projects of the hit producer Bernd Eichinger was the cinematic reappraisal of a harrowing scandal: The story of suffering of the Austrian Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped by Wolfgang Priklopil in 1998 and imprisoned for eight years, was supposed to be raised to a great ripper by Eichinger standards. The feuilleton was already sharpening its pens to break the usual "Can you do that?" Discussion. And success at the cash registers would have been certain because of the scandalous material. These plans were buried with Eichinger in 2011. According to Markus Schleinzer's "Michael" and especially Frédéric Videau's "Coming Home" would have been superfluous anyway. With these two films everything is already said about the helpless malice of such a perpetrator and the indescribable suffering of his victim. Schleinzer's biting satire and Videau's chilled drama stand for two very different approaches to the topic, but they have one thing in common: Both renounce manipulative sentimentality. With "Coming Home" Videau by no means pretends to his audience that such a tragedy can be processed and understood as a film drama. The dramatic bulkiness is both a strength and a problem here. Because this "drama" hardly goes to the heart. For more than eight years Gaëlle (Agathe Bonitzer) has been held captive in a cellar dungeon by factory worker Vincent (Reda Kateb). After the man had violent clashes with a work colleague, he apparently voluntarily releases his prisoner - and hangs himself the following night. While Gaëlle struggles to get back in touch with the world and especially with her troubled parents, she is haunted by overpowering memories of her imprisonment. As the distance from her martyrdom grows, Gaelle begins to form a more complete picture of her ominous "relationship" with her tormentor. Soon the sociopathic man turns out to be more and more the only constant in her life ... Gaelle's return to life could easily have been portrayed as the usual catharsis of a passive victim figure. It is to the credit of director Videau that he avoided this trampled path and allowed his heroine a closed and painfully callous face. Both in and after captivity, Gaëlle seems to be wearing a mask that she does not want to let go of. In freedom, she is encouraged to let her feelings run free - which she always avoids. In this way she remains the master of her emotional world, so she evades the expectations of her environment and those of the cinema audience. Watching her between processing and flashback is fascinating. It's not touching. "Coming Home" is a film of dreary objectivity and extreme coldness, which does not make it easy for the audience to empathize with the inner workings of its protagonist. Instead, a complicated and consistently discreet victim / perpetrator relationship is explored. And there are indeed some unexpected insights. Vincent is by no means a sex offender or pedophile, but a deeply lonely eccentric who is above all about society. goldmovies knows how to make use of this. In a key scene, she commands her seducer to finally sleep with her, since he doesn't want anything else from her anyway. Vincent is beside himself. He asserts that he is not a rapist or a voluptuary. Only on the basis of love returned would he want that. That would never happen, replies Gaëlle. At this moment Vincent seems to be the loneliest person in the world. Rainer Werner Fassbinder already said that love is colder than death - this is where this thesis finds its equivalent. A catharsis for Gaëlle is only possible with the dawning of understanding and initially unconscious forgiveness. Such an ending will surely meet with some head shaking and the incomprehension of those who already know better and better - but in fact Videau offers such a prospect of a further life beyond the shadows. As strange as it may sound, the kidnapper is the real emotional center of the film. Videau doesn't excuse his character, but neither does he condemn her. Character head Reda Kateb ("A Prophet") gives Vincent a face that expresses so much unprocessed frustrations and inarticulate longing that it will not be forgotten long after this mysteriously chilled film. Where other filmmakers would have looked down on Vincent, Videau looks at him Eyes - a look that hurts - not least because what you see looks terribly familiar. Conclusion: "Coming Home" is not an off-the-peg abduction melodrama, but ratherWith “Coming Home” director Zhang Yimou returns to a certain extent to his roots after bombastic wuxia films (“Hero”, “House of Flying Daggers”) and an occasionally somewhat kitsch war epic (“Flowers of War”). With his long-time cinematic and private partner Gong Li in the lead role, he staged a poignant drama about a family torn apart in the course of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which will never be able to experience a reunification in the longed-for form.
China, early 1970s: the talented dancer Dandan (Zhang Huiwenn) is doing everything she can to get the lead role in a major propaganda ballet performance. The ambitious girl lives with her single mother Feng Wanyu (Gong Li) and has never really got to know her father Lu Yanshi (Chen Daoming), as he was deported to a labor camp many years ago as part of the Cultural Revolution. But then the mother and daughter are informed that Lu has fled and that his sighting should be reported immediately. While Feng hopes to see her again, her indoctrinated daughter is anything but enthusiastic to hear from the father, who has been locked away as a potential danger to the communist system. When Lu tries to get in contact with his wife and Dandan only gets a supporting role in the performance because of her father who is not suitable for the party, despite great ability, the offended daughter betrays her father. Lu is caught and sent back to the labor camp. Only after the end of the Cultural Revolution is Lu acquitted and returns to his family expectantly. But his wife suffers from a special form of amnesia and is no longer able to recognize him as her beloved and long-missing husband ...
As with “Flowers of War”, “Coming Home” is also an adaptation of the novel by the American-based writer Yan Geling. While the literary source also describes Lu Yanshi's youth in Shanghai, his studies in the USA and the living situation in the labor camp, Zhang's film is limited to the later life chapter of the novel's protagonist. In addition to the official announcement that Lu was convicted as an intellectual right-wing and thus a party opponent, the circumstances and background of his imprisonment in the camp are left in the dark and the Cultural Revolution and its consequences are not discussed in more detail. In the second half of the film, the sensitive political issue is apparently completely faded out in favor of an intimate-emotional focus on the family. However, the protagonist's special form of amnesia can also be interpreted as an allegory for the collective social denial of the painful past.
In doing so, Zhang Yimou succeeds in finding an extraordinary visual language to capture the gray, clearly ordered everyday life of this time and especially the tense climate of mutual shadowing and observation on behalf of the communist party, especially in the first third of the film. In addition, the tragic fate of the loving married couple with the cautious political and historical classification, which was the only way to withstand Chinese censorship, is a clear case study for the crimes committed against the population in the course of the Chinese cultural revolution. Innocents who do not conform to the communist state system were deported or killed, families were torn apart and children were often so strongly indoctrinated that they even turned against their own family members for the benefit of the omnipresent party.
The melancholy story of a family torn apart by Chinese politics, which extends over several decades, only becomes really emotionally tangible through the excellent acting of the three main actors. Gong Li ("Red Lantern", "The Geisha"), who is working with Zhang Yimou for the eighth time, impressively embodies the woman who suffers from partial memory loss. Li acts withdrawn, but the sadness and feeling of loss of the protagonist is reflected in her face alone, which she has been carrying within herself since the many years of separation from her husband. In particular, the expression when Feng Wanyu expectantly wants to meet her husband on the platform on the fifth day of each month and then always has to see that her lover will not appear is heartbreaking. At her side is the new discovery Zhang Huiwen, who embodies the first stubborn, egoistic, later repentant and caring daughter Dandan, as well as Chen Daoming (“Hero”, “Empire of war - the last resistance”) who is wonderfully absorbed in the role of the loving husband “), Who has the unshakable love and affection of Lu Yanshi
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