Coming Home Zhang Yimou’s film “Coming Home” tells the story of a man that after being confined for many years gets back to his family, but, painfully for him, is not recognized by his wife, who suffers from some kind of illness that diminished her memory capacity. The man is a teacher who during the Chinese Cultural Revolution was captured and confined to another province to be re-socialized. During his capture in a railway station, his wife received a blow from an official that caused her memory problems. The man wrote to his wife the day of the week and time he would arrive to the railway station and finally return to her after so many years. She goes there and waits for him at the exact time but fails to recognize his husband as he stands in front of her. He does not try to force her to recognize him and let her go. The rest of the film could be summarize as his attempts to being recognize by his wife, who every week at the marked day and time goes to the station to wait for his husband in vain. He takes the same train several times, but when he passes by her, she is not even closed to realize he is the man she so faithfully waits. At certain points, it seems she is about to recognize him, for example, the moment he plays a tune on the piano that moves her to hug him, but after a spell she rejects him, causing him even more pain. The story made me think about how fragile we human beings are, both physically and spiritually. A simple blow on the head can change the way you live and how you see the world, as it happened to the female protagonist. On the other hand, we depend on others to be what we are. We are not only defined by what we decide, think or do, we certainly need other people’s recognition, which we cannot control at all. Just imagine what would happen if tomorrow you were not to be recognized by a person close to you, as it happened to the male protagonist.