The Film Farewell My Concubine - Movie Review Example

The relationship of film to history in films Introduction Farewell my concubine is a Chinese drama created in year 1993. Chen Kaige was the drama’s director. Fare well my concubine is among the central works that brought the directors of films in china of the fifth generation to the world’s attention. It explores the effects caused by the china’s political turmoil in the mid-twentieth century on the lives of families, individuals as well as groups. The drama is an adaptation of Lilian Lee’s novel. Lilian Lee is among the writers of the film. The film revolves around the friendship of Dieyi and Xiaolou that had lasted for a period of fifty-two years. Fiery conflicts together with tender reconciliations are the evident aspects in this friendship (Cui 12). Farewell my concubine enlightened people in a number of ways. Before the development of this film, very few people were aware that most of Peking Opera’s members originally were illegitimate castaways or orphans with no other place to turn. Farewell my concubine is a magnificent piece of art that, from it, various historical events can be traced. The film’s context relates in a number of way with the Chinese history as the document discusses (Leung 16). Discussion The farewell my concubine’s protagonist is a woman. The role is, however, played a male actor Leslie Cheung. From his childhood while, in Beijing opera training school, Cheng Dieyi gave up his male identity and started playing female parts in the Beijing operas. The entire movie reveals him adapting to the femininity both on stage and his real life. He even struggles telling the real life and opera world apart. His stage name, Dieyi, has its translation as butterfly dress hence possesses a female connotation. The film contrasts Cheng’s femininity with Duan Xialou’s hyper masculinity. Between Cheng, Xialou and Xialou`s wife changing relationships got developed. The scenario’s analytical solution is taking Cheng a symbolic woman since he was a man but performed female functions (Zhu 23). The first historical aspect related to the film is the Cultural Revolution. The Peking opera’s portrayal together with people around got revealed as very strong and also powerfully submerged within history. The history is at the peak of cultural and historical unfolding in china. The film is revolution than an evolution. After the film revealed the first hand experience of Kaige on china’s cultural revolution the film clearly revealed that it was nothing but a critique to the movement that was meant to vanquish all the past elements be it in art or religion in china. The Cultural Revolution as the film took away both the china’s old culture and the china’s higher culture (Cui 24). The history of china’s gender consciousness is also another aspect related to this film. The gender consciousness plays a significant role in this film. In the film’s light history that had in big part ignored women or either made them objects for the male gaze got revealed. The film made use of Juxian or Dieyi to reveal to people as well as making them understand that female possessed personal empowerment and emancipation as opposed to many Chinese believed (Zhu 34). Another important historical aspect that got revealed in the movie is through the depiction of resistance and resilience to destruction of the Peking Opera. Despite the fact that Peking Opera witnessed some change of hands by powers they constantly performed. The opera also filled their stage with colors constantly despite the fact there was an audience’s backdrop. Variation in flags was a symbol of constant change that was taking place in china. The aspect took place until Cultural Revolution got imposed by the new power holders (Leung 43). The Peking opera or decades of greatness were shattered immediately and suddenly by the imposition. Since all in the past had an evil tag, the Peking Opera that had people knew in that era, was also liable to face destruction. The repercussions on the people’s life not only people within Peking Opera were liable to be ruined. It is as Dieyi exhibited. The time for saying goodbye to the great Peking Opera was, therefore, due just as Cheng and his concubine Yu did. It was, therefore, farewell. The aspect related with china’s operation in that there was a great urge for China to farewell some of their current aspects (Cui 32). The farewell my concubine captured Peking Opera’s greatness until it finally got shattered by the Cultural Revolution. The film had its creation in an intense and passionate manner. It got created in the sense of enlightening the Chinese what they possessed back then before the elimination of their higher culture when they still had their exalted form of heritage. Undeniably, Kaige created an intense political socialization medium through the political realizations. The aspect hence forms another direct relationship between china’s political system and this piece of art. The film also expressed how hard it was for china to bid farewell to its foundational treasures despite the fact that it was an argument for this act was for building better treasures (Zhu 39). The farewell my concubine film also portrayed the homosexuality aspect in the Chinese society. Despite the fact that there is neither depiction no mention of homosexuality in the film, the connotations are clearly revealed. During that period when there seemed to exist some underlying homoerotic tensions between Xiaolou and Dieyi, Dieyi got engaged in an adventure with an influential opera patron. Virtually, homosexuality was absent in the Chinese cinema up to this point despite the fact the phenomenon was evident in the Chinese society (Leung 54). The existence of a homosexual protagonist in such a popular film seems like a big step forward. Sadly, the protagonist got teemed with stereotypes that were homophobic. He was soft, timid and jealous. Dieyi in the film is not revealed openly as a homosexual. He lacked the self confidence in his homosexuality identity. Most importantly, Dieyi played the woman’s role in the film. The aspect reveals the prejudice that the Chinese gay men had to tackle. The prejudice is coherently imagined existing between homosexuality and femininity (Cui 37). Homosexuality and masculinity have been revealed to be mutually exclusive phenomenon in the Chinese society. The film showed the capability with the hardship and stigmatization that gay people in the Chinese society had to endure. The farewell my concubine also revealed the longtime marginalized social position. It was by showing a solidarity attitude to the homosexual men as well as creating their filmic image free of discriminating stereotypes. Chen Kaige contrasted to that aspect by portraying homosexuality as being abstract as well artificially detached (Leung 76). The film also revealed the division that was in existence between the private and the public. Simply, the film farewell my concubine encapsulates the public versus private concept as well reveal how the film got revealed as an effective political socialization medium. The film indicates what the public is and how it differs from the private. The definition of the public was the state institutions. These institutions incorporated the government apparatus, the police, the courts, the army and social security system. They got regarded as public due to the sense that they have a responsibility of collectively organizing the community life. The public realm in the film farewell my concubine got shown in two ways. One way that could have its consideration as the public would have a difference from the political periods that china had passed through long before the republic of china had come into existence. It then proceeded china’s invasion by Japanese, then to the national government rule, then to the civil war of china and finally to the cultural revolution (Zhu 64). The other way that the public got depicted in the film is a Chinese society. On the hand, the private realm incorporated the areas of life that people can do as well as managing themselves. These activities include domestic, social, artistic spheres as well the economic. In the film, the private realm also got portrayed in two different aspects. The first aspect is the Peking Opera while the other one involves the lives of Xiaolou and Deiyi (Cui 48). The film hence showed that there was an interplay that was in existence between the private and public realms. It was in relation to the Chinese private and public groups. The film gives an explanation of the two concepts as naturally dialectical. Similarly, the two concepts are inseparable from one another. In the film, this is shown when various Chinese political turmoil become depicted. It was during the twentieth century on the Peking Opera Troupe as well as showing how politics in a half of the century could greatly affect the lives of two friends and performers (Leung 89). That scenario clearly indicates how the public had great effects on the private. It also indicates that the public possesses something related to how the privates live their lives. Particularly, the people can be able to see how cultural revolution imparted some effects to the Peking Opera and how it contributed to art’s death in a way. Revolution has also been expressed to cause betrayal among the film’s characters. If analyzed critically the friendship of the two main characters in the film is a private thing which should needs to remain that. The film indicates how Cultural Revolution led to the infiltration of this private thing by the public matter (Zhu 67). Another interplay of private and public got revealed in the scene when Xiaolou’s wife killed herself. Suicide seemed to be entirely a private matter. However, the reason behind the suicide seems to be public. Though the explanation of the suicide is nowhere in the film farewell my concubine it is evident that she killed herself since her husband betrayed her. The betrayal of Xiaolou to his wife, however, is another private matter. The reason Xiaolou betrayed his wife out of cultural revolutionaries. These revolutionaries form part of the public matter. It hence forms how the private matters receive effects from the public matters. The film also acted as a critique to the china’s socialization. It also acted as a medium of Chinese political critique. The political critique of the film related mutually with the communism aspect that was in practice, in the Chinese society (Cui 74). This film’s main purpose was the reexamination of the Chinese history. Through the film, an individual can know the things that were going through in the Chinese society during and even before the film’s development. How the public and private matters were interlocking and how the Cultural Revolution took place. The film got developed by Chen Kaige. It can hence have a regard as his narration. He developed the film to narrate a love story between Xiang Yu the king of Chu and Yu Ji his favored concubine. The film of Chen followed that entailed lifelong drama of two actors of Peking Opera. The actors were Xiaolou and Dieyi who play the roles of the king and a concubine (Zhu 79). The roles of these characters as inseparable lovers, as well as offstage lives like companions, have their test as social upheavals of china. Truth in the historical film is a very crucial aspect. It is because of this truth that people can be able to trace back where the society has come from as well as how different aspects have been interlocking in the society. The film farewell my concubine reveals an absolute truth on the hardship that is available in remaining true to anyone or anything under pressure from difficult circumstances. Truth is a crucial aspect and hence it should be put in place and also emphasized in any of the films that have something to do with history (Leung 113). Conclusion The historical films are very essential in any given community since individuals especially the young generation would learn their history from them. They also play a role of storing a community’s history that cannot easily become lost. The film farewell my concubine has brought various aspects that were taking place in china, in both its sociological and political aspects. The film, therefore, phrases its context in matters that were taking place in the Chinese people, as well as the government, despite in an artistic manner. It hence helps people to understand a lot concerning Chinese history. Works Cited Cui, Shuqin. Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Pr, 2003. Print. Leung, H. H.-S. (2010). Farewell, my concubine. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. Zhu, Ying. Chinese Cinema During the Era of Reform: The Ingenuity of the System. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003. Print. Read More