Coming Home, sensitive recall of a dismal past

AN unspeakable sadness hangs over almost every scene in Coming Home, a movie with a theme - the Cultural Revolution and its tragic aftermath - that resonates powerfully among the many millions whose lives were affected in some way by it. Directed by Zhang Yimou and based on a novel by Yan Geling, the movie follows a family struggling to overcome adversity by rebuilding the past - brick by solitary brick.

The failed socio-political experiment initiated by Mao Zedong and known as "The Great Leap Forward" lasted only a decade (1966-76), but its effects lingered on for much longer, most markedly in the people who were ruthlessly persecuted for being enemies of China's Communist Party. It was a time when res…