Way back in "From Mao to Mozart, the 1980 documentary about violinist Isaac Stern’s journey to China and advising on music education as the damages to education of every kind of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution"* were being repaired, Stern was vexed by technically proficient young musicians who could play the notes (better, in some cases, than he was doing in those days…), but were not playing the music.

The 2002 Chinese movie, "He ni zai yi qi" (Together, 2002) includes one or two violin virtuosi, protégés of a star-maker conservatory professor, Professor Yu (played by director Chen), who lack soul, that is, who play the notes rather than the music. And onto the deeply corrupted selection scene comes a youngster from the country with a whole lot of soul, who can play the notes and make them sing ("play the music").

The movie is more about father-son bonds (including a number of father figures) and not selling one’s soul for success than it is about making music, but classical (western) music is the arena in which the boy from the provinces (not the countryside, though the epithet "peasant" gets thrown around a lot) is pushed by his father to develop and be recognized. There are many parents who believe in the talent of their children. Sometimes, one of them is right, and the self-sacrificing father played by Liu Peiqi is one of these. His insistence pays off for Liu Xiaochun (Tang Yun) the yearning young violinist.

My violin training is sufficient for me to be sure that Tang is playing the music of Bruch and Tchaikowsky, even if the sound heard by the audience is produced by someone else, the earlier too-quickly-successful student of Chen Kaige’s character (Li Chuan-Yuan). Tang is playing the notes and playing the music even if an older violin virtuoso’s recording is what we hear.

The somewhat Capraesque movie is very fluid visually, very romantic musically, and contains excellent performances, especially from Liu Peiqi and Tang Yun. The two of them go (north) to the big city (Beijing) and quickly discover that guanxi (connections) matter more than talent in the competitive world of (western) classical music performers in China. Even securing the services of an excellent (if depressed and difficult) mentor (Wang Zhiwen as Professor Wang) is not enough, and the father who is ambitious for his son’s genius to be recognized manages to interest the more elite conservatory teacher, Professor Yu (Chen Kaige). How this is accomplished is very entertaining, as are the reactions of and Professor Yang to the switch, and those of the eclipsed protégé Yun was grooming (and who has a breakthrough of her own after having an epic snit that clues Yun into significant understanding of his own background. (The Yuns’ quest also redeems a dissolute neighbor, Lili, played by Chen Hong, the wife of the director, who has an unusual relationship with the boy, and whose other relationships make the movie's PG rating a bit of a surprise.)

As Xiaochun, Tang Yun is onscreen almost every minute of the nearly two hours of running time. He is very sympathetic, but this is a result more of soulful expressions (both when playing the violin and when looking at others, including a rival student in Professor Yu’s violin hothouse) than of dialogue, He does, however, have some quite entertaining petulant exchanges with Professor Wang and some joshing of his father.

A tearjerker about parental sacrifice and parental championing (with a father rather than the more usual mother of, say "Blonde Venus" or "Belissima") mixed with the familiar story of the difficulties of being musically talented and working class (Body and Soul, Madame Soutzatka, Billy Elliot),) set this time in neocapitalist Beijing, the movie probably shouldn't work, but it does (and not just for me). It is less operatic than Chen's "Farewell, My Concubine," "The Emperor and the Assassin," or "Temptress Moon," harking back to the "simple country folk) of Chen's (1984) breakthrough movie, "Yellow Earth" (albeit about performers as those movies set in historical times are, including the spiritual father and son in the very hinterland and in an unspecified past time in "Life on a String").

Compared to some other recent Chinese movies that have made it to US release ("Beijing Bicycle," Not One Less," "Lan Yu"... and "Hero"), the migrants to the capital are less overcome by the sophisticates of the capital city and less exploited. Still,t there is a major theft and the constant threat of being expelled for not having officials papers to reside in Beijing.

The only DVD extra is the theatrical trailer (unless one counts subtitles of the Mandarin dialogue as an "extra").

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Director Chen Kaige has spoken of his remorse at having denounced his father as part of the Cultural Revolution, and the ode to paternal devotion that is "Together" no doubt has anti-Oedipal roots in his much regretted failures of filial piety for his own father. I don't think that knowing this is at all necessary to appreciating the movie, however.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older