Set in his home province of Gansu, Li Ruijun’s golden-hued film is a heartbreaking tale of love and resilience in the face of societal indifference and change. With a cast largely made up of the director’s relatives as well as villagers from the landlocked province, this deeply personal work on the plight of rural farmers has a striking feel of authenticity and poetry.
Against the brutal reality of manual labour, the unlikely romance that develops between Ma (Wu Renlin) and Guiying (Hai Qing), two middle-aged outcasts herded into an arranged marriage by their apathetic siblings, is at once tender and fragile. Echoing a quote from the film, their existence is like the brittle wheat that gets listlessly blown in the wind. As a means to eradicate poverty, the government seeks to bulldoze rural China’s rudimentary homes; forced to relocate by their relatives who are after the monetary compensation, the pair become wandering souls whose only comfort is their burgeoning companionship.
