Fancy a little swim?

★★★ out of ★★★★

Walking to School (2009)

Runtime: 86 minutes

MPAA: Unrated.

The real-life story that inspired "Walking to School" is terrifying enough.

Impoverished children from the Tibetan area would use an overhead cable to cross the Nujiang River to attend school everyday. The prospect of these young children performing such dangerous tasks to pursue an education is already more than a commendable effort, and I'm sure there have been tragic stories of freak accidents like falling into the dangerous, raging stream of the river.

"Walking to School", which was released in 2009, aims to explore and make us sympathise with the children's conditions and struggles as they constantly zipline to school. Directors Jiahuang Peng and Peng Chen tell a tale of a brother and sister in a rural area, and with a small setting and cast, have a relatively good focus on the story. It's also accompanied with striking settings of mountaintops that will make you occasionally marvel at the scenery.

What works even better is that "Walking to School" is also about a sibling bond, and an exploration of the good virtues its characters possess. The pacing is languid (but seriously, what's the rush?), and maintains a steady momentum in depicting its characters in an often realistic and believable way.

The story starts off in a rural house located in Yunnan's Gongshan Mountain, just opposite of a road to school. A 7-year-old boy Wawa (Jerry Ding Jia-li) desires to attend school, just like his older sister Nanxiang (A Namuling). However, his mother (Chen Yifei) forbids Wawa from attending school as travelling there requires them to cross the river using the overhead cable.

In what seems like a way to depict a normal citizen's reaction to the dangerous act, Nanxiang has to call a local doctor (Dong Ming) to attend to their ailing grandmother (Zhao Yuelai), who was unresponsive earlier that morning. The doctor's hesitant and scared reaction to the idea of travelling across the river via the cable is a testament to the grueling journey he has to inevitably take to save the granny in time. (There is also an alternative mountain path, although the track is too long.)

Wawa enthusiastically learns from his sister at home, and often complains that he wants to attend school, though he's often silenced by his mother, being promised that he will be able to do so when his dad (Shi Ning) returns home after going out to the city for work. Tired from waiting for his father's return, Wawa makes a disguise one day and crosses the river enthusiastically using the cable, where he sneaks in to the school compound.

An aforementioned city teacher, Teacher Nie (Cao Xiwen), spots Wawa hiding behind the classroom windows, eager to learn from the teacher's sayings. An expected dramatic moment plays out when the teacher visits Wawa's home and the mother learns about his actions. 

Some officials that pop up without context also state that a bridge will be built across the river by the government, though it would take several months. Still, Teacher Nie, with kindness and compassion, cares about her classmates and purchases boots and socks for each of them.

"Walking to School" works, but because of the central figures that boost it. The sibling bond shows us the lengths siblings go to protect and cover us. Quite often, they're also people you'll genuinely have fun with, and create memories that we often cherish in life. Other figures like the teacher also promote goodwill and helpfulness, which are all the more inspiring for little children.

A moment of equal parts shock and sudden drastically turns the tone dark, as Nanxiang slips off the cable and falls into the river, for the sole reason of attempting to retrieve a pair of shoes she had gotten for her brother. The father returns coincidentally in time, which feels like a plot contrivance. Everyone is dismayed to hear this saddening news, and this also causes Wawa to refuse to speak a single word, as he sits by the cliffside reminiscing the times he used to play with his sister.

There are also understated themes that Wawa deals with, like mental illness, loneliness, and depression. Teacher Nie tries to cheer him up, until Wawa shows her his drawings below the house, about a bridge, and his sister. We cut to 6 months later, where the bridge is finally built, and he imagines walking to school with his sister if she survived. A nicely executed scene of Wawa dropping his toy into the river is also a symbolism of him letting go of the grief that has engulfed him for the past half a year.

Because the movie is so often joyful to depict the life of Wawa before the shocking incident, there is also slightly reduced tension and understanding to how exactly, aside from taking the cable, are the children struggling with personal life? In addition, some emotional moments for characters are just not handled particularly well. The father remains expressionless when the mother breaks down in tears, and some fundamental scenes are either off-screen or flat-out cut weirdly. However, all that matters is how it has impacted our main character, and how he feels about it. That part is played convincingly.

"Walking to School" may not make us angry about the system, challenge us to go against it, or convince us to immediately take action regarding the children's plight, but merely sympathise with these underprivileged people and understand their struggles and hazards in their arduous journey to obtain knowledge.