Return to Dust (2022) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever marriage is mentioned
Take a Drink: every time Cao has an accident
Take a Drink: for tender gestures
Take a Drink: whenever someone takes advantage of Ma
Do a Shot: every time they are forced to move
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
It feels like high quality films of every type and genre are coming out of China these days, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen something like Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou’s 1990s humanist dramas. Li Ruijin has answered that call.
Return to Dust tells the story of Ma and Cao, he quiet and maybe a little slow, her even quieter with a few physical deformities, which makes their families believe they’re ideally matched (and as such can take care of each other so they no longer have to). Out of these humble beginnings a sweet shared existence grows.
A Toast
Li, who both writes and directs, create characters and a story whose considerable beauty is fully in its simplicity. Due to his steady hand and the subtle, both heart-growing and heart-breaking performances from Wu Renlin and Hai Qing, we might underestimate these two silent, tentative souls when we first encounter them, but learn to appreciate their strength and gentleness.
These two, much abused yet still loving and tender not just to each other but those around them, pose in stark contrast to practically every other character, striving and not hesitant in the least to take advantage of whoever they can to make a buck or get ahead. There’s an allegory here for modern China, and really for modern life in general, which never feels heavy-handed, but which cannot be missed.
Beer Two
This is slow cinema at very nearly its slowest, although don’t mistake that to mean it’s ever boring. As one might have surmised from the title, this isn’t happily ever after kind of stuff, either, so in combination you’re going to want to make sure you’re in the mood for it.
Verdict
Return to Dust is a simply lovely story of two souls living on the margins who find life and meaning in each other.
Return to Dust has been making the festival circuit since Berlin in February, but is tentatively slated to release in November. Keep an eye out for it!
