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Film: Raise The Red Lantern
Running time: 125 mins
Director: Yimou Zhang
Starring: Li Gong, Jingwu Ma, Saifei He, Cuifen Cao, Qi Zhao
Genre: Drama
Country: China/Hong Kong/Taiwan
Region 1 release.
Raise The Red Lantern, Zhang Yimou’s powerful and evocative depiction of life in 1920s feudal China, was nominated for several awards and won a BAFTA for best foreign film of 1993.
The storyline, adapted from the 1990 novel Wives And Concubines by Su Tong, follows the fortunes of a young student who is forced to marry a wealthy overlord.
At the age of 19, Songlian (played by Gong Li) is uprooted from her family home to become a bird in a gilded cage, at the mercy of her powerful husband Chen (Ma Jingwu).
As his fourth wife (effectively one of his concubines), Songlian has to contend with the jealousy of other three and vie for his attention, as she struggles to find her place in the oppressive confines of the palace which has become her prison.
The red lantern which is raised outside the home of the woman chosen to share her husband’s bed each night is a sought-after status symbol among the wives...
This Chinese-Taiwanese co-production, sumptuously shot and rich in period detail, with the ancient city of Pingyao in Shanxi Province providing an authentic backdrop, paints a compelling portrait of four wives locked in a cold war with each other, gradually stripping away the stately facade to reveal the savage instinct for survival which drives them.
Wife number one, Yuru (Jin Shuyuan), is the matriarch, whose position is assured since she has produced a son and heir. Chen’s son Feipu (Xiao Chu) is a student of a similar age to Songlian, and the brief, understated exchanges between the young pair hint at what might have been, in different circumstances.
Zhuoyun, wife number two, (Cao Cuifen) takes the newcomer under her wing and warns that she will have to contend with the jealousy of the third wife, Meishan (played with panache by He Cafei) who is an opera singer and something of a diva.
Adding further complications to the multi-layered plot is Songlian’s maidservant Yaner (Gong Lin), who turns out to be another of Chen’s lovers, and secretly conspires against her own mistress. Chen himself is a shadowy figure whose face is not shown until the denouement of the film, but his threatening presence is felt throughout.
When he finds Songlian’s most treasured possession – a flute belonging to her late father, whose death left the family bankrupt and lead to the arranged marriage – he destroys it, believing it had been given to her by an admirer. This is one in a series of small but significant incidents which conspire to crush Songlian’s spirit - until she begins to fight back.
Within the confines of the wives’ quarters, the camera focuses closely on the elaborate rules and rituals of their daily lives. When Meishan is temporarily in favour with Chen, she revels in her position by ordering only meat dishes for the communal meal, a deliberate snub to Songlian, a vegetarian.
The rivalry between the women intensifies when Meishan invites the local medic, Dr Gao, to one of her soirees. Songlian notices Meishan playing footsie with the doctor under the table and, drunk after the party, tells the other women what she has seen, not anticipating the terrible consequences of her actions. These fierce lionesses, closely guarding their pride of place in the palace, lie in wait to unleash their claws on each other, and Songlian eventually learns that she can trust no-one.
Gong Li gives a subtle and sensitive portrayal of a young girl caught up in a world of intrigue, who is forced to become cunning and ruthless to survive, taking revenge on her rivals, but losing her sense of self in the process.
With each new twist and turn, this tale of Chinese whispers raises the stakes until it becomes clear that the ensuing power struggle can only end in tragedy.
While the film was initially censured in communist China for its supposed anti-authoritarian message, this polished piece of cinematography nevertheless became a classic which firmly established the international reputation of Zhang Yimou, who later went on to direct the critically-acclaimed House Of The Flying Daggers.
The attention to detail, colourful camera work and well-observed characterisation combine to make this a masterful and memorable piece of storytelling. AL
Film: The Concert
Release date: 16th July 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 122 mins
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Starring: Aleksei Guskov, Dimitri Nazarov, Melanie Laurent, François Berleand, Miou-Miou
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Studio: Optimum
Format: Cinema
Country: France/Italy/Romania/Belgium/Russia
Having both enjoyed award success and critical acclaim, the teaming of French director Radu Mihaileanu with lead actress Melanie Laurent was promising enough, before adding the wondrous music of Tchaikovsky into the mix.
Under the anti-Semitic Brezhnev regime, Andrei Filipov (Alexei Guskov) lost his prestigious position as conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra as a punishment for refusing to expel Jewish musicians from the group.
Thirty years on, working as a cleaner at the theatre, he still dreams of taking up the baton once more, and when he finds out that the Bolshoi have been invited to play a concert in Paris, he keeps the news to himself and hatches a plan to take his own orchestra instead.
To this end, he has to reconnect with all the musicians he knew back in the day, getting them to dust off their old instruments and polish up their playing skills. He also has to enlist the help of his old adversary, Ivan Gavrilov (Valeri Barinov), the Communist party activist responsible for Filipov’s humiliating fall from grace, who agrees to go along with the scheme, as he has his own agenda.
Against all odds, the orchestra manages to get to Paris, where the talented violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet (Melanie Laurent) is persuaded to play Tchaikovsky and help heal the wounds of the past...
Mustering a motley crew of Russian musicians with rusty skills to perform at a top venue in Paris is a premise with plenty of comic potential – even if the idea that they can make beautiful music together at the drop of a hat is a bit far-fetched. Still, if you can manage to suspend disbelief and go with the flow, it’s easy enough to be swept away by the enthusiasm and energy of this unlikely ensemble.
Cultural differences between the unruly mob of Slavs and their more sophisticated French hosts play a large part in the humour, and director Radu Mihaileanu highlights the contrast by using fixed camera shots to illustrate Parisian elegance, while hand-held cameras follow the frenetic antics of the Russians.
The cast of characters include an elderly trombonist, who insists that his asthma actually improves his playing, and a gipsy violinist who is particularly well-accomplished on the fiddle, with a sideline in arranging fake passports for orchestra members who need them in a hurry. The character-generated humour works up to a point, occasionally treading a fine line between comic exaggeration and racial stereotyping. Scenes where the Russians speak in faltering French present a particular challenge, as the comic touch runs the risk of becoming lost in translation.
Alexei Guskov, a seasoned veteran of the East European movie scene, with forty films under his belt, gives an earnest and likeable performance as conductor Andrei Filipov, though he comes across as more of a straight man than a natural comedian. His admiration of the violinist Jacquet is such that he keeps all her CDs and press clippings in a folder. A trail of clues seems to suggest a father-daughter relationship, but this is something of a red herring, as the past connection between the pair is not quite so obvious.
Melanie Laurent, best known to an international audience for her role as Shosanna Dreyfuss in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, has a luminous screen presence as the virtuoso violinist who is haunted by the music of Tchaikovsky - for reasons she cannot quite fathom. Laurent, who is left-handed, learnt to play the violin for the part, a daunting task as the instrument cannot be converted and must be played be right-handed, so she ended up with tendonitis. Bravo: her playing looks authentic enough and no-one can say she isn’t prepared to suffer for her art.
While the challenge of playing a cool and self-controlled character appears to place constraints on her emotional range at times, she is finally able to give her feelings full expression in the climactic scene, when Jacquet faces her fears to perform Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto for the first time.
The score combines original music by Armand Amar with the sublime harmonies of Tchaikovsky, a fine blend in keeping with the musical theme. Mihaileanu neatly ties up loose ends in the highly-charged final scene, interspersing highlights of the concert with flashbacks telling the fate of the Jewish musicians from three decades earlier, while flash forwards show the orchestra on a world tour following their success in Paris.
The message that reverberates through to the final chord is that people’s lives can be transformed, at least temporarily, through the shared experience of music, which crosses barriers of language and culture to achieve harmony and perfection. The fine performances from the players in this concert may merit a round of applause, but the transcendental music of Tchaikovsky is the star. AL
