Mountains May Depart

Mountains May Depart is a 2015 Mandarin-language drama and the 8th feature film directed by Jia Zhangke. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. and was also selected to be shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot In 1999 Fenyang, 25-year-old shopkeeper Tao finds herself in a love-triangle between Liangzi, a good friend and poor laborer in a local coal mine who has unrequited feelings for her, and Jinsheng, a well-off gas station owner who, despite being pompous and cruel, she is more attracted to. Tao showing affection for Jinsheng sets off a confrontation between her two suitors. Tao and Jinsheng decide to get married. Liangzi, feeling incapable of maintaining a platonic friendship with Tao, leaves town. In 2014, Tao is now divorced from Jinsheng and still living in Fenyang, running the gas station and being a prominent and generous woman in the city. Jinsheng has since remarried and lives in Shanghai and has become wealthy from investments. Liangzi works as a miner near Handan and has gotten ill. Tao and Jinsheng's son, Daole (pronounced Dollar in English) aged 7, comes to visit the funeral of Tao's father. Tao is upset by Daole's distance, and behaves surly towards him. Tao, knowing they are fated to be apart, decides to ride the slow train with Daole. As a parting gift, Tao gives Daole a set of keys for her house so that he can return to his home whenever he wants. In 2025, Daole (now currently called Dollar) is attending college in Australia. He is constantly fighting with his father over his desire to drop out of college and have the freedom he was never granted in his childhood. He meets Mia, his Chinese language teacher, an older woman for whom he develops feelings and eventually begins a relationship with. Dollar shares with Mia how he still carries the keys his mother gave him when he was a young boy, and that he fears she may die even though they have not talked for years. Mia convinces him to fly back to China with her so that he can see Tao. The film ends with Tao dancing to Go West; any reunion with Daole (Dollar) is not seen.