Life on a string
A film directed by Chen Kaige
Starring Liu Zhongyuan and Huang Lei
Reviewed by Wayne Ruscoe
Two blind musicians wander an achingly beautiful landscape, searching for spiritual salvation or, at least, the return of the power of sight. Chen Kaige gives the moral and political emptiness of Maoism a big serve in this, his fourth cinema release.
The straightforward allegory of people cheated by those they trust is Chen's most masterly film so far, but it is not easy viewing. A slow, melancholic pace is essential for the telling of the tale of the ageing master and his less ascetic apprentice Shitou ("Stonehead"), and considerable patience is needed by the viewer. The rewards for perseverance are great, however.
The old master has waited 60 years to gain the hidden formula that his teacher had promised would restore his vision. The secret, he had been told as a youth, would be revealed only after the breaking of a thousand banjo strings. We join his story at string 995 and follow the two itinerants around the countryside as they play for their supper and wait for the snapping of the last five strings. There are no car chases.
Young Shitou is also hungry for a new vision, though he doesn't want to wait 60 years. He goofs off, plays blindman's buff (with a blindfold on) with the local kids, falls in love, and rejects the discipline of his master. He neglects the musical instruments that are the tools by which the pair make their living and ignores the sensuousness of their music for the immediacy of love. Of course this path ends in tears before bedtime and neatly parallels director Chen's own life: teenage Red Guard, post-Tienanmen exile and, with the shooting of this film, an unrepentant, though wiser, prodigal son.
Filmed in China, financed in Europe, this is a challenging and moving work by one of the world's finest young film makers. As a commentary on the disillusionment of the people of China it is without peer, and I guess we shouldn't be surprised that it was banned by the Chinese authorities. Sometimes it must feel better to be blind.
[Life on a String opens at the Valhalla, Sydney, on November 13, and in other capitals around the same date.]