Even though I have always lived in the same city, I have moved as many as six times in less than thirty years. There are many houses I have lived in, and many memories I have made in them. But as time passes, the earlier memories are fading away. As I have practically shifted to the other side of the same city, it’s not feasible for me to go back to the places I used to live before. More importantly, with no relatives and friends, why would I go back there anyway?
The reason I am getting this personal is this short film, titled The Other Side of the Mountain, directed by Yumeng He. The documentary-short follows the director’s father, Cheng He, as he goes on a journey to explore a neighborhood in South-Eastern China, from where he hails. Cheng, who’s another artist, is doing it upon his aging mother’s insistence, who has requested him to go there as she is too old to move around. The director, Yumeng, is seen to be following Cheng by herself and filming the whole experience. It’s been years since Cheng has moved from the place, and he is unable to recognize the streets and the alleys he used to walk down once upon a time. The people he sees, especially the younger ones, are also new. However, there’s a genuinely touching moment when Chen comes across a group of old women, most of whom used to be his mother’s friends. He then video calls his mother so that she is able to see all her old friends. What is more remarkable is that one of the women is also video calling another woman so that Cheng’s mom and this other woman can connect. Technology plays a huge role here, after all, and as a hugely pro-tech person, I appreciate that. The fact that this is a documentary and not a fictional story is what makes it even better, if you think about it. Yumeng didn’t have to make anything up here; all she had to do was the filming.
What I found really interesting about The Other Side of the Mountain is the fact that it comes from a deeply personal place. Thanks to the press material that I received before this review, I got to know that Yumeng’s own home from her childhood was destroyed as a result of China’s endeavors in the direction of becoming a fast-growing development country. Not that it was a surprise for Yumeng, as she is used to things changing rapidly growing up in China. But this is where she found the motivation to explore what has been lost in time. Things like houses may cease to exist as they’re never forever, but the memories we make in them live with us. That’s a genuinely beautiful thing to make a movie about, and the effort is visible in Yumeng’s work. I was also glad to find out that she has previously done similar kinds of work with other places like the Central Valley of California and the Chinatown of San Francisco.
I’m going to go personal again. Last year I sold a house. My mother bought the property a year before her death. I lived there for four years after her death before moving out finally. It had been years since I’d been there. Thanks to technology, I didn’t have to visit the place anymore to collect rent from the tenant. After the tenant was gone, I had zero reason to go there anyway. Quite naturally, letting the house go and making some money made all the sense in the world, as it was just sitting around. So I went ahead and did it. Truth be told, I never really liked living there. I also disliked the locality. Where I currently live actually makes me feel a lot better. Yet, when I handed over the keys to the new house owner for the final time and stood inside the house, there was this emptiness I felt. The thought of never setting foot at this place again was kind of sad. I never visited the locality, but after watching Yumeng’s work, all those memories from that time came rushing back to me. Maybe someday I will visit that neighborhood again and think about how it used to be. It is quite possible that I would not be able to recognize it anymore. This is still a review, by the way, in case you’re wondering. But it is not a usual kind of short film, and there’s really not much to talk about the story. This is something that one needs to feel, which is what the director had most likely aimed for.
The Other Side of the Mountain reminds me of two other movies as well, which hold a very special place in my heart: Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues (2015) and Chris Marker’s iconic La Jetee (1962). Needless to say, both of these films primarily focus on exploration of memory, much like Yumeng’s documentary short. Of course, impact-wise, it is nowhere close to La Jetee. I mean, there’s no doubt that Yumeng has put her heart and soul into making this thing, and it is quite visible. But the narrative often gets to certain points where you feel impatient and can’t wait for the moment to pass. For a nineteen-minute-long short film, that is not quite desirable. A better narrative was probably needed, and better editing could also have benefited it. That said, what Yumeng has achieved here is still quite a feat; that should be celebrated. I personally would definitely love to see more of her work and explore her future journey as a documentary filmmaker.
