date watched: April 16, 2009
location: at home, thanks to The Global Film Initiative's Global Lens 2009 and Laura de Toledo at the Chapin School
Getting Home follows a middle-aged man's journey to China's Three Gorges, where he must arrive to fulfill his dead friend's wish of being buried there.
Despite the paucity of dialogue, the film was in no way lagging or boring. On the contrary, the excellent performance of Zhao Benshan and the breathtaking rural landscapes make up for "lost time," so to speak.
The film really made me wonder about the meaning of home, and the homelessness that the modern man often feels due to displacement and disorientation from reality.
There are some chilling scenes that reveal the sheer vileness of mankind, and yet the director offers an uplifting message of hope: there is always someone on your side, and no matter how abject the situation, help is on the way.
Many similarities could be made with Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941), Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936), and Sisyphus, the character in Greek mythology.
My favorite scene was in which the protagonist appears to have given up, and digs a hole in the ground for his friend to lie peacefully. When he crawls into the hole himself, he decides to end his journey, saying, "Brother, I'm going with you." He even ties a rope around a stone to bang himself with, only to find that he is not ready and too scared to die. A truly honest portrayal of man's psychology.
I'm not sure when this will get a wide DVD release, or if it ever will. Hopefully.
For more information, go to globalfilm.org
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