Under the Hawthorn Tree

I have often said two things about Zhang Yimou: first, that Zhang Yimou peaked in the late eighties and early nineties. Of course, as usual, I am not an expert and am simply expressing my humble, possibly incorrect opinion, despite not having seen every Zhang Yimou film to support my statement. Yellow Earth, the film considered to have kicked off modern Chinese cinema for which he was the cinematographer to Chen Kaige's directing, is arguably his best work. Raise the Red Lantern was great. Red Sorghum was good. To Live was great. The second thing I often say about Zhang Yimou is that he hasn't made a good film since 1994. The twin wuxia epics, House of Flying Daggers and Hero are interesting in their own right but too much of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon bandwagon films to be really considered exceptional, and also they start to mark Zhang's Hollywood ass-licking era, which continues on today. I saw his Coming Home in the cinema and thought it was okay. He made a Christian Bale vehicle and is now the director of the infamous Great Wall. And, until now, I have always (rather pompously) thought I was right in making such a statement.

I will now amend my statement. Zhang Yimou has not made a good film since 1994, except in 2010. However, this is because, in 2010, he momentarily had two souls. A gentler, softer Zhang Yimou from a parallel universe who'd had a much happier childhood was transported into this universe's Zhang Yimou's body. (We'll call the other Zhang Yimou, Zhang Yirou, with rou being the word for "gentle" and "soft".) Zhang Yirou saw Zhang Yimou's mind and was sad. He couldn't understand why Zhang Yimou, once the enfant terrible of Chinese cinema, had truly become a terrible child –– a real pain in the neck with a knack for crowd-pleasing –– who had begun to plagiarise himself in order to try and replicate his success. "Why is there not more gentleness and softness in this universe?" wondered Zhang Yirou. And so he decided to make Under the Hawthorn Tree. After the premiere of the film, Zhang Yirou returned to his parallel universe. "I have done good," he thought. "I have brought some gentleness and softness into that world. I have made Zhang Yimou a good director again." But he was wrong. Zhang Yimou is not a man to be messed with. During the course of the production of Under the Hawthorn Tree Zhang Yimou had suffered immense pain due to being subjugated by another soul in his own body. He could only watch as his gentle and soft counterpart hired a new Yimou Girl and created a gentle and soft film. Although he had to admit to himself it was a good film, he decided to spite Zhang Yirou by continuing to make mediocre-to-average, 6/10-type films.

Of course, all this is to say that Under the Hawthorn Tree is a gentle and soft film. It is another Saint-Exupérien work, which is currently my favorite genre. (My second favorite genre at the moment is heist films. Ah, I love heists. Ever so much.) Although it takes place during the Down to the Countryside Movement, with parents never being seen again after being labelled rightists and with a particularly hopeless and exhausting abortion scene, the Romance of the Hawthorn tree (as the Chinese title translates to) between the two main characters is just –– so –– pure. And even though the main reason why they can't be together outright is to not endanger her career, which is fragile because both of her parents are counter-revolutionaries, all the political turmoil just seems like background noise to the sincerity of their relationship. Laosan and Jingqiu are bashful and innocent, too shy to make outright expressions of love. This is especially the case for the latter, who doesn't even have a name for him. She makes him a golden koi keychain. He buys her boots. Every little detail brims with tenderness. A tear leaks from her eye and, as she turns her head to look upwards at the ceiling, it traces a line down the middle of her throat. Her family manufactures envelopes by hand in their one-room home, and the process runs throughout the film. Stacks of ochre-yellow envelopes with crimson ink lines get passed from mother to daughter to son to daughter. Her mother uses a flat blade to cut out the corners of each paper to make flaps. Then she puts down the flaps, insisting on the folds with a heavy brick. Then the children's nimble fingers flip, stick, tuck, glue. The fresh smoothness of the paper is a constant and a comfort into which Jingqiu retreats. There are none of the exuberant and gaudy colors of Zhang Yimou's signature. The palette is subdued under a delightful wash of faded Communist era tones. Jingqiu's face (to which, I admit, I bear some resemblance) stands out among a sea of white shirts whose textures are almost tangible from the screen: once starched, but now soft to the touch, smelling of cheap simple soap and a hint of sweat, well-worn. He tells her the hawthorn tree's flowers bloom red. He tells her she looks good in red. He gets leukemia, the white blood cell disease. She wears red for him. He dies. When spring comes, the flowers are small and white, like mist, like bandages, like the splash of river water in the hot summer months.

That's all I'll say now. That's all I can say. The rest I'll keep in my heart.