0
0
“If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have had anyone to say goodbye to,” the guy tells the girl in a flat tone in Bound In Heaven. It isn’t a conversation that lovers from the yore would have had. He is referring to an experience he might relish. Theirs isn’t a timeless love story that sticks to definitions. Still, Huo Xin’s debut film might as be the grandest romance you would encounter in 2024’s festival rounds. Its grandiose seldom arises from the scale. Bound In Heaven is driven by its contemporariness and its protagonists’ grit to take each day as it comes.
Erich Segal’s romantic classic Love Story might be Xin’s inspiration as she makes twin flames on the night of a concert. The wealthy yet physically abused Xia (Ni Ni) feels an instant connection with a street ticket seller Xu (Zhou You). While it starts as a one-off, rebound-like encounter, fate has other plans for the couple. They meet again to spin a gorgeous odyssey of love in the most unglamorous ways.
The beauty of Bound In Heaven is in how it subverts the essential melodramatization of a plot that brims with that potential. In a stray motorbike accident, you see the couple fall into a wet field. We observe Xia ensuring her safety to later observe and offer first aid to a bleeding Xu. The filmmaker ups the graph of their intimacy through somewhat lengthy yet beautifully realized sequences – one with an expansive, green water body where they swim and another where the girl ties up the guy with a plea to seek medical help.
“You may not believe it but I do not remember the last time I watched the sun rise. Or did an all-nighter like this,” Xia’s words remind us when Xu is around, she is up for any adventure. The guy isn’t being playful when he repeatedly tells the girl, “All you need is a knife.” He does not think twice before piercing one into his thigh.
This way, Bound In Heaven is a violent film. The lovers may not be harming each other but there are strong elements of suffering and abuse while manifesting physical pain in a different dimension. It also provided a refreshing (and realistic) perspective of parents. Xu’s parents are as unfeeling as he deserves. The elderly couple rightfully tells him, “Do not come back here,” and the film allows us to peek into their state of mind.
Bound In Heaven, in its final act, works as a mesmerizing dance of love. It has poetry, philosophy, and emotions galore. Xia and Xu are immersed in a life where nothing else matters but the good times they would create before a tragedy comes knocking. The New Year’s night sees the couple on the streets and in a boat – living each second as it ticks.
Actors Ni Ni and Zhou You drive Bound In Heaven with their high energies and organic sizzle that we seldom crave more characters or scenery. Mind you, the film with its artsy cinematography and countless picture-postcard frames is a photographic marvel. The bright shades and the clever play of lights never go unnoticed even as we cry buckets for the leads.
The original score (filled with soft keyboard strains) adds depth to the couple’s interactions. The dialogues gleam with familiarity and wit making their fire-and-ice chemistry beautifully come alive.
Huo Xin’s screenplay does not leave a single component to go unutilized. Whether to an artiste by whom Xia is fascinated, her ability to tie knots, or the references to self-defense, knives, and celebratory fireworks – everything fuses to give us a heartrending closure. Bound In Heaven is not haunted by the ghost that predictability is. The iceberg is seen from miles away. To those who grew up shedding copious tears to Erich Segal’s ‘Love Story’, here’s a tragic romance that gets its pulse just right.
Rating: ★★★★
Bound In Heaven was screened at the 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI, Goa).
