A very simple line but yet it carries a huge meaning a deeper thought to the meaning of taking the road home. Each one of us has always trodden down the path that leads us home, some everyday, some less frequently but the significance of taking the road home becomes alive only after we are dead.
Perplexed? Well so was I. This concept of coming home is what director Zhang Yimou lovingly portrayed in the film of the same name, the Road Home.
The film is shot in China and has the opening in the modern times where a business man makes his way home for his father’s funeral. Upon reaching the village he is summoned by the village headman and told that the mother intends to have the father carried into the village from the city morgue. He also urges the son to reason with the mother to change her mind on the funeral procession and instead opt for bringing the body in a tractor rather than carrying him home, a problem compounded by the fact that the village youngsters have left the village in pursuit of better job opportunities. The mother declines the offer and insists on carrying the body back home based on a superstitious whim. The son obliged to carry his mothers wish for his father’s last rite sets out to hire the men from the neighboring village. In the meantime there is a story on how the parents met.
Interestingly portrayed the story goes on to tell of the love story that develops between the village school teacher and the village’s most beautiful maiden. Simple as it may seem the bond formed with the father and mother is basically what paves the way for the title the road home. This love story is one in which the mother waits the fathers every day of their courtship along the way, just to catch a glimpse of him and in a way he to gets to know of the fixation the village belle has on him and acknowledges it. Surprisingly it is the separation that brings the two together, never to be separated but at death.
This association of the path, which laid the foundation to a lovely and memorable association, is what prompts the mother to insist on carrying the father back home rather than having him transported. The mothers argument that the father should be carried home so that he get to travel the road home one last time before he is finally laid to rest truly justifies the expenses the son has to undertake. Little did he anticipate, that the past students of the father would actually come to help out in the procession and the contracted workers to carry the body back home without taking any money.
We have been exposed to such sentimental ads of the students coming forward to help the teacher or showing their appreciation for their tutor in the advertising campaigns run by the renowned garment manufacturer, Raymonds.
But the road home is something that each one of us goes through and isn’t it appropriate to travel the road home one final time.
