| World Film Classics: Raise the Red Lantern | |
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Director:
Zhang Yimou
Starring: Gong Li, Cao Cuifen, He Caifei, Lin Kong, Jungwu Ma, Zhao Qi.
125 minutes. Color.
1991.
One of the joys of watching international movies is that they open up new worlds full of exotic traditions, amazing settings, customs we've never heard of, strange costumes, objects, and people. I even enjoy reading the subtitles because it allows me to listen to the sounds of a language I don't speak -- it feels a little like eavesdropping.
Like science-fiction movies, the new worlds of foreign films lets you observe how people behave under wildely different circumstances, and in the end we realize that they're still people, no matter how strange they look, no matter if they're wearing Klingon outfits or ancient Chinese costumes.
Raise the Red Lantern is one of those movies that kidnaps you to a foreign place and immerses you completely. Luckily, the strange world of the film is explained carefully enough so you never feel lost. The story follows young Songhian (Chinese superstar Gong Li) who decides to get married to a rich man. In his household, she becomes the Forth Mistress, the youngest among her husband's wives.
Songhian -- and the audience -- quickly learn the rules of the Master's home, which looks like a beautifully designed compound: whichever wife the Master currently favors is graced by his attention, lavish foot massages, and a whole bunch of red lanterns which are lit in front of her house.
Human
nature being what it is, the competition among the wives for the Master's good
favors is intense, and soon Songhian is tangled up in a fierce battle for the
red lanterns (and those foot massages). What starts out as harmless bickering
soon turns to intrigue, backstabbing, and worse. The shifting alliances and
worsening guilt of the women caught in a golden cage while they are fighting
for a man they don't love (and the audience never gets to see) make for the
intense drama of this film.
Raise the Red Lantern is directed by one of the masters of contemporary Chinese cinema, Zhang Yimou, who also collaborated with Gong Li on Ju Dou, Shanghai Triad, and To Live. The gorgeous costumes, fascinating architecture, and atmospheric colors make this film a rich visual pleasure; it's the kind of thing I wouldn't mind playing on a screen in my house all day long with the sound turned off.
My only qualm with this film is the ending, which seems a bit too romantic for my sensibilities. I don't want to give it away, but it's the sort of thing that happens in Victorian novels. On the other hand, it might be perfectly satisfactory to you, and it won't keep me from recommending this fine example of Chinese cinema.
