Made between his initial international success "Yellow Earth" 1984) and before his mega-success Farewell, My Concubine (1993), "Bian zou bian chang" (which means "walking and singing," but is titled "Life on a String" in English, 1991) has the reputation of being Chen Kaige's film least accessible to western viewers. Having watched it with my in-laws, it seems not to be appreciably more accessible to viewers raised in a Chinese culture. The behavior of the Mongolian villagers is no less shocking and inexplicable with the cultural background.

The motivations of the blind itinerant musicians, on the other hand, make sense to me. Their aspirations and frustrations are perfectly clear (via the subtitles; my in-laws had difficulty understanding the clearly non-native Mandarin of the saintly master musician (Liu Zhongyuan). They did not have any trouble with the Mandarin of Huang Lei, whose first language I would guess is Cantonese. A decade before playing the cellist in "Fleeing by Night," Huang Lei, had more than a lost love to suffer onscreen. The pain and disappointment and mistreatment that the blind young musician he plays, Shido, endures cut across any cultural differences. How anyone can be as cruel as the villagers are to him is unfathomable, and his stoicism is difficult to fathom, but the pain he feels is completely accessible—and heartbreaking to watch.

I guess that it is obvious that Huang Lei got to me. I sympathized and even identified with him in "Fleeing by Night" in which he blew his chance for love. Shido does nothing to deserve the bad things that are done to him. When finally he tears finally roll down his face, he is motionless. Before that, he has two huge disappointments. He wails (heart-rendingly) after the second, suffers the first one mutely.

I know that I have not said anything specific about the plot. To survive this movie one must be heartless or be prepared to go deep into suffering. I teared up before Shido did, and going back to watch the last two chapters of the DVD again cried through all eleven minutes. (The master's long and utopian ballad I have already discussed in my tear-jerker posting.) There is much suffering portrayed in most of the movies of Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. The 20th century in China was one disastrous oppressive oligarchic regime following another (Qing, Kuomintang, war-lord, Japanese, communist).

It is not clear when "Life on a String" is set. There's no modern technology evident. From the characters' dress, it could be any time during the Qing dynasty. The movie opens 60 years earlier, when the Old Master was a boy. His master told him that after he broke his thousandth string (on a sanxian, a plucked-string instrument somewhat like a long-necked banjo) and opened the box, he would find a prescription that would enable him to see. As he and his blind apprentice, Shido, wander to the edge of a raging, very muddy torrent (back-projected, probably the Yellow River), and an open-air noodle-stand that serves wine and then to a temple to the God of Death somewhere in Mongolia. The Old Master is on his 996th string. Over the course of the movie, he finally breaks the thousandth one and goes to the city to deliver the prescription to a pharmacist.

Meanwhile, a local lass Lanxiu (who is remarkably free to move about) falls in love with Shido, and there is a battle with a neighboring village. The Old Master is venerated, but when Shido is left to wait while the Old Master goes to fill his prescription, he is beaten up. (A gang beating a blind boy is really hard for me to take and, even worse in that he is being tortured because he is blind...)

I don't want to spoil the plot. There definitely is one. There is not much development of character, at least in any sense of change in character over the course of the film. Both the old and the young musician seem to me to have great charisma and Xu Qing has considerable charm as Lanxiu. (There's also an enigmatic woman who serves at the noodle-stand, well-played by Ma Ling.)

The setting is very photogenic and practically every frame of the movie could be a painting. Gu Changwei also shot "Red Sorghum" and "Ju Dou" for Zhang Yimou's, "King of the Children" and "Farewell, My Concubine" for Chen. Unfortunately, the transfer of obviously gorgeous images to the Kino DVD is inadequate. There are no extras. I would really like to hear from Chen, who went to school for a time in New York City and has now made a movie in English, but, even more, I really wish the great cinematography had been transferred better.

The music by Qu Xiao-Song is haunting (I don't know if the Old Master's ballad is traditional; its aspirations are especially heartbreaking.) The transfer is alright, but is not stereophonic.

In sum, a frustratingly poor transfer of a gorgeous, scenic, painterly movie that shows great cruelty and suffering, that it is hard to bear watching... but bears repeated viewings!

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Although also a tear-jerker, Chen Kaige's more recent portrayal of a young musician and his relationships with his elders, Together, is less devastating (also urban and contemporary). Chen has only directed ten feature films, but they form an impressive oeuvre. The largest-scale one is "The Emperor and the Assassin"; the other one I've reviewed is Temptress Moon; I have not seen his English-language "Killing Me Softly" nor the much-panned "Autumn in New York" lensed by Gu Changwei for director Joan Chen.





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD