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Film: Farewell My Concubine
Running time: 171 mins
Director: Kaige Chen
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Li Gong, Qi Lü, Da Ying
Genre: Drama/History/Romance/War
Country: China/Hong Kong
Region 1 release.
Chen Kaige’s epic historical drama is one of the pillars of the Chinese Fifth Generation, the film movement that gave birth to directors such as Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang, as well as influencing scores of modern filmmakers. Spanning across five decades, the film captures many pivotal moments in modern Chinese history, such as the Chinese Civil War and the Cultural Revolution, told through the personal experiences of a group of Beijing opera performers.
The film begins in a turbulent 1920s China following the end of the Qing Dynasty. The main protagonist, Dieyi, is the son of a poor woman who is forced to give him away to a Beijing opera troupe. It is soon discovered that Dieyi possesses a birth defect - an extra finger, and in the opening scenes, the troupe master is seen brutally chopping it off with a cleaver. This symbolic castration creates a grim omen for Dieyi’s fate, foreshadowing the difficult reconciliation between his identity and sexuality.
Due to the traditional nature of Beijing opera, women are not allowed to act and so men have to play both male and female roles. Dieyi, because of his effeminate build, is forced to train as a ‘dan’ – a male actor who only plays female roles. Soon, a friendship quickly develops between him and another boy, Xiaolu, the male lead. However, conditioned by always having to play the female onstage, Dieyi begins to harbour romantic feelings for Xiaolu. Unfortunately, for Dieyi, his affections are unreciprocated, sending him into a period of depression and opium addiction.
The climactic end of the film is set during the Cultural Revolution, in which the performers all suffer a tragic demise as Beijing opera is attacked for being a bourgeois form of entertainment. Theatres go out of business and are burnt, and the actors are forced to perform new, political plays, promoting the work of the Communist Party.
Throughout this period, Dieyi and Xiaolu, the main stars of the theatre, are attacked and persecuted by their understudies, made to write self-criticisms and paraded through the streets as class-enemies by the public. The two friends are beaten and reduced to hysterical wrecks, forced publicly to betray one another in order to save their own skins. As the baying mobs encourage them to humiliate and denounce each other, lifelong friendships are torn apart as both men compete to reveal one another’s most shameful and bitter secrets from the past…
Such a traumatic ordeal is far from fiction. Director Chen Kaige has stated in interviews that such scenes are based upon his own experiences as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. With such brutal depictions of the violence inflicted upon society by the Communist Party, it is of no surprise that Farewell My Concubine was banned upon release in mainland China.
Moreover, the film also questions the nature of political movements and revolutions against the interests of the individual. Throughout the decades, such is the beauty of the Beijing opera that it manages to survive the invasion of both the nationalist and Japanese armies. Indeed, in one particular scene, Dieyi is invited to perform for a group of Japanese generals, who sit captivated by his craft. It is only the communists, who regard Beijing opera as bourgeois and imperialist, that try to eradicate it. Ultimately, it seems, despite the promise of liberation, quality of life worsens under communist rule, and ancient traditions and art forms are systematically destroyed.
A number of issues regarding gender and sexuality are also raised in the film. Do gender roles define our sexuality, and what impact does society and upbringing have on it? For someone like Dieyi, continually referred to as “a girl” by his peers, and sexually abused from a young age, his private self begins to take own his onstage persona, conflating reality with fiction. In order to truly take on his role as a woman, Dieyi is forced to give up his masculinity in the name of theatre. Life imitates art, and performance thus becomes a defining part of his identity, in terms of his profession as an actor, and in his everyday life, where he must ‘act’ the part of a heterosexual man in normal society.
In some senses, the film can be regarded as a valentine to Beijing opera, which is portrayed as a cruel yet magnificent institution, with its performers having to sacrifice themselves for their art. The lavish costumes and settings are all shot in epic, breathtaking scenes that convey the full glory and excitement of the theatre. Dieyi, during his performances as the female lead, radiates a fragile, androgynous beauty, made all the more poignant by actor Leslie Cheung’s real life controversy surrounding his sexuality, and subsequent suicide.
By using the metaphor of theatre, Chen invokes the idea of performance onstage and in everyday life, creating a contrast between the public and private self. The onstage persona of the actor mirrors the public persona of the individual. Do we not all, to some extent, ‘perform’ a role in society, and keep a part of our true selves masqueraded from everyone else, be it our sexuality, desires, or ideology?
Farewell My Concubine is a tour-de-force of Chinese cinema that unearths the shattered and untold personal histories of a troubled modern nation, liberated and subjugated by itself all too many times. KW
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: 2046
Release date: 23rd May 2005
Certificate: 12
Running time: 129 mins
Director: Wong Kar-wai
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Li Gong, Faye Wong, Takuya Kimura, Ziyi Zhang
Genre: Drama/Romance/Fantasy
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
How to follow up one of the most internationally acclaimed films of recent times? If you’re Wong Kar-wai, you serve up a semi-sequel, sort of-remix. Does 2046 match up to In The Mood For Love?
Picking up four years after the events of In The Mood For Love, newspaper man, Chow (Leung), still nurses a broken heart over the loss of Su Li-zhen, and returns to Hong Kong from Singapore in 1966 as a calculating womaniser who leaves a trail of emotional destruction in his wake.
As he bounces from woman to woman, he documents his experiences in a serialised, allegorical science-fiction story about a semi-mythical utopia called “2046” - a place where people go to “recapture lost memories. Because nothing ever changes in ‘2046’. Nobody really knows if that’s true - because nobody has ever come back…”
What is the significance of the number 2046 as a film title? Is director Wong Kar-wai exploring hitherto un-chartered political waters, presenting audiences with symbolic angst over Hong Kong’s eventual return to overall Chinese control (the famous “one country, two systems” policy being due to expire in the year 2047, with no official word yet on how Hong Kong will be run beyond that point)? How can a character speaking Cantonese have a fluid conversation with a character responding in Mandarin? And why does Gong Li’s character have the same name as the one essayed by Maggie Cheung in Days Of Being Wild and In The Mood For Love?
These are just some of the many questions a first-time viewer will be left scratching their head over during the closing credits of 2046, a film which veers from mildly confusing to outright alienating, all the while being never less than utterly compelling.
Where In The Mood For Love was a heart-driven movie about restrained passion, 2046 is a more cerebral affair about human beings as wounded animals, and the terminal ache of unrealised desire. Thanks in large part to wonderful work from a fine ensemble cast, Wong’s emotional themes resonate profoundly, even if his intellectual commentary may initially seem somewhat garbled.
Gong Li makes a great impression in a very small role, while Zhang Ziyi really begins to show depth and range as a lovelorn escort. But the anchor of the film is Tony Leung, who revisits the romantic hero of In The Mood For Love and re-imagines him as a heartless cad, effortlessly conveying that the promiscuity and emotional cruelty on display are never anything more than weak tonics for his own broken heart.
Technically, the film is never anything less than exquisite. Wong’s visual flourishes remain peerless, whilst the cinematography from Christopher Doyle and Lai Yiu-fai is typically stunning, with its rich texture and originality of composition. Between the fine cast and the matchless crew, a first viewing of 2046 is always arresting, if not especially satisfying.
It’s on repeat viewings that the majesty of the film really shines. With hindsight, the director’s reprisal of music cues from earlier works, such as Days Of Being Wild, become more noticeable, as do various other recalls - such as moments where a character considerately removes a lady’s high heels as she pretends to be asleep; or the use of mysterious female characters who hide behind adopted names/personae in lieu of facing up to who they really are - and in aid of running from memories that are just too painful.
While 2046 may, at times, play like a mid-concert medley of a singer’s greatest hits, to dismiss it as purely self-indulgent is to misunderstand the level that Wong is working on. His abiding theme, consistent in each of his films, is memory and its destructive power over our lives. And what better way to illustrate the weight of memory than to recall characters, metaphors and leitmotifs from his oeuvre?
That being said, 2046 falls just short of ‘classic’ status for this very reason. Though he is among the most distinctive directors working today, Wong’s fingerprints have never been so clearly visible on one of his films before. Where his previous work saw richly realised characters gently meandering through their lives, the director, seemingly at the mercy of their actions (or, more often, inaction), is much more in control of his characters, forcibly guiding them through scenes and sequences to serve his existential commentary. Gone is the exploratory joyousness of Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, and in its place is a colder detachment that one would not normally associate with the director. But this is a minor notch against a film of staggering depth and ambition, that rewards repeat viewings like few others. It may not play well for the uninitiated, but for anyone who has ever seen a single Wong Kar-wai film, it is simply essential.
Not quite a masterpiece, but an engaging and enlightening career retrospective that also happens to be a rather excellent movie in its own right. As the final word on Wong Kar-wai’s cinematic obsession with memory and loneliness, it leaves admirers very excited to see which path he takes with his career from this point. JN
