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| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
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| According to reliable news reports, the Chinese government never confirmed having banned Li Ruijun’s quietly heartbreaking feature “Return to Dust,” a touching portrait of love and resiliency in a collapsing rural community of Gansu Province. |
| Still, the film was pulled last fall from all Chinese movie theaters and streaming services two weeks after a successful domestic debut. It isn’t hard to see why. China’s leadership has a history of suppressing art that spotlights the failings of its ruling class and ideology, which is exactly what Li’s film does, with a script that feels only occasionally overwritten. That he succeeds without making it feel like homework — which is to say beautifully, humanely — is presumably what made the film so threatening. |
| With superb performances by Wu Renlin and Hai Qing, “Dust” tells the story of Youtie and Guiying, middle-aged strangers pushed into an arranged marriage by families looking mostly to offload them. Youtie is a dirt-poor farmer living in a crumbling mud-brick home on the cold, arid hem of the Gobi Desert, effectively indentured to his brother and a local merchant. Guiying has a chronic illness. Her hands tremble, and she can’t control her bladder; whether her problems or her family’s abuse came first is unclear. |
| As their awkward union evolves into one of genuine trust and affection, their fortunes, if not their long-suffering donkey’s, improve. Their methods are backbreaking, ancient and dusty but also dignified — rendered with golden, poetic sensitivity by the cinematographer Wang Weihua. |
| Unfortunately, we’ve seen enough movies to know what that worsening tremble bodes and what kind of story that donkey is there to observe. Unless he’s friends with Shrek, it probably isn’t comedy. |
| Return to DustNot rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 11 minutes. In theaters. |
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