Return to Dust review – paean to the simple life | World cinema

It’s an arranged marriage of convenience – other people’s convenience. Browbeaten Cao (Hai-Qing) is offloaded by her brother on to Ma (Wu Renlin), the humblest of peasants, with little more than a donkey to his name. But against all expectations, a tender bond develops between them. Together, they eke out a life governed by the rhythms of the natural world, finding in their marriage a solicitude and comfort that had been denied them both until now. It’s a gorgeous, quietly affecting film that finds an unassuming beauty in this simple life in rural China, but which doesn’t shy away from the extreme hardships faced by the very poorest. A sleeper hit domestically, it reaches UK and Irish audiences having recently been unceremoniously pulled from Chinese streaming services, a victim, it is suggested, of a tightening official control over unflattering depictions of Chinese life.

It’s an arranged marriage of convenience – other people’s convenience. Browbeaten Cao (Hai-Qing) is offloaded by her brother on to Ma (Wu Renlin), the humblest of peasants, with little more than a donkey to his name. But against all expectations, a tender bond develops between them. Together, they eke out a life governed by the rhythms of the natural world, finding in their marriage a solicitude and comfort that had been denied them both until now. It’s a gorgeous, quietly affecting film that finds an unassuming beauty in this simple life in rural China, but which doesn’t shy away from the extreme hardships faced by the very poorest. A sleeper hit domestically, it reaches UK and Irish audiences having recently been unceremoniously pulled from Chinese streaming services, a victim, it is suggested, of a tightening official control over unflattering depictions of Chinese life.