Film Review-Finding a Harbor for the Soul: Understand the Moving Film Where Is My Home in 6 Minutes

This film was adapted from a Christian’s real-life experiences; this moving story is full of twists and turns and profoundly meaningful.The director related this story by combining an overt storyline with a covert storyline, delving into a deeper understanding of “home.” In the overt storyline, tragedy befalls the protagonist Wenya—her parents divorce when she’s two years old and establish separate households. She lives with her father, but her stepmother refuses to tolerate her. Her mother is constantly busy with her own business and has no time to look after her. Little Wenya is constantly bounced around between her father, her mother, and the homes of friends and relatives. After growing up, she and her father come to rely heavily upon each other, but she is faced with one misfortune after another. Just when her college entrance exams are right around the corner, her mother has a stroke, and her father has late-stage liver cancer; she has no choice but to enlist the help of friends and relatives, but they all drift away, one after another. Wenya falls into very difficult circumstances …

Wenya’s paintings serve as important props in the film. They appear a number of times from beginning to end as an emotional expression, reflecting the process of change she undergoes deep in her heart and furthering the development of the plot. At first her paintings show the four-person family living together happily, but later she and her father appear on one piece of paper while her mother and sister appear on another. The happy family was split into two. When Wenya asks her sister in her childlike way, “Why do all the other kids only have one home, but we have two?” her sister places the two pieces of paper together and says, “Here, now we’re all together.” The two children’s innocent dialogue is starkly contrasted with the cruelty of reality, inspiring love and affection for Wenya in audience’s hearts. And providing more food for thought: As modern society continues to focus on money more and more, affections between relatives and friends become more indifferent, and social phenomena such as left-behind children and old empty-nesters become more serious. What do these things really mean for humanity?