China, Hong Kong, 1993
Directed by Chen Kaige
With Leslie Cheung (Cheng Dieyi – the adult Douzi), Zhang Fengyi (Duan Xiaolou – the adult Shitou), Yin Zhi (Douzi as a teenager), Ma Mingwei (Douzi as a child), Zhao Hailong (Shitou as a teenager), Fei Zhenxiang (Shitou as a child), Li Dan (Laizi as a teenager), Yang Yongchao (Laizi as a child), Lu Qi (Master Guan), Gong Li (Juxian), Ge You (Master Yuan), Ying Da (Na Kun), Lei Han (Xiao Si)
The crisp black and white cinematography slowly looks flawed as another color emerges, nestled in details, giving the pictures an eerie texture. It is the borders of a flag or a jacket that discreetly change but then the change becomes widespread and striking: red is asserting itself till the film uses full color stocks.
The scene, which takes place in 1924, first looked as a rupture from the initial scene showing two actors, fully dressed and made up, tentatively stepping inside a stage, confused, talking awkwardly to a stage hand, a scene shot in colors and dating from the late 1970s (with a clear allusion to the ongoing political struggle to control the Communist Party as Mao Zedong’s widow and a few companions defy Deng Xiaoping).
It obviously starts a long flashback, aiming to shed light on these two actors’ story, and it could have been a strictly black and white affair. But the trick to use the black and white as a transition whose point is to highlight a specific color not only subtly leads the audience back to full color but also signals what would be the visual and symbolic tread running through the narrative – red and everything that the color evokes, a wide gamut of emotion and action, from anger to violence, from lust to passion, from lavishness to prestige. More conspicuously as the narrative unfolds, red is blood but also bravery, at least according to the codes ruling some characters and their costumes in jingxi – what the West calls the Peking Opera. The fate of the two actors is readily painted as a violent and terrible story as they strive to reach their artistic goals and to stay true to themselves and to their strong, special relationship despite, the hurdles raised by politics.
Education is violence. It is said that a youngster must undergo ten years of pain to put on a successful and rewarding performance in a ten seconds role so demanding the multifaceted art of jingxi is. The film loudly emphasizes the point: it delves in ghastly detail and relentless focus into the harsh methods that a typical professor, Master Guan, relies on to train the kids parents have trusted to him, in the hope the offspring would get a better future. This is the case of Douzi whose mother at the start of the black and white scene reckons to take him to Master Guan; Master Guan refuses to take him, appalled by the fact the boy has a hand with six fingers; desperate to get her son enrolled, the mother, a whore, does not hesitate to cut in the street, with the first knife she could grab, the annoying finger; once the contract signed, she vanishes (the sad image of an open door with snow flakes falling and nobody in sight), leaving Douzi dismayed and crying.
Douzi is not warmly welcomed by the mischievous and agitated kids looking for their own shot at glory and living and getting educated in shocking conditions. He right away cuts an awkward, distant, weird figure, but nevertheless manages to get respected by Laizi, a clever and rude kid looking like a natural leader for the boys and a pain in the ass for Master Guan and also strikes a friendship with Shitou. Years go by fast, the children grow into teenagers, but learning the trade remains tough and the discipline unforgiving. The school is more than ever a prison and pleasing the staff harder too. Douzi struggles learning key songs of the repertoire while Shitou manages to be a fine acrobat. But Laizi eventually gives up and kills himself, unable to put up with the treatment the students get when it is Douzi who becomes the target of spanking.
Douzi is eventually spotted by the jingxi’s manager, Na Kun, and performs the role of the concubine in a traditional “play” (Chinese operas are not structured along a narrative and single musical composition as the Western ones), “Farewell My Concubine”, with Shitou playing a courageous king fighting his enemies (the love of his concubine brightens his life but his kingdom is on the verge of collapse and he must witness the suicide of the concubine who is painfully aware of his looming failure). The success is huge – changing the course of his life unexpectedly for Douzi as an old, wealthy connoisseur forces him to have gay sex.
As they hoped, Douzi and Shitou manage to stay together and to perform in acclaimed productions of “Farewell My Concubine”. They become famous and rich, bearing new names: Douzi is now Cheng Dieyi and Shitou Duan Xiaolou. They looks inseparable and yet there is a gap lying between them: Cheng Dieyi is unmistakably gay and in love with his companion while Duan Xiaolou is a promiscuous straight fellow. The gap could have been of little consequence if Duan Xiaolou had not decided rashly, and yet proudly, to marry a prostitute he likes, Juxian, to spare her more troubles with the customers of the brothel where she works. To him it is letting sentiment driving his life for once, to her it is a chance to improve her lot, to Cheng Dieyi it is a humiliation feeding resentment.
But it is not passion that would challenge the most the actors, their bond, and their careers. It is the hectic pace and ruthless logic of political history, as China is first attacked and partly occupied by imperialist Japan and then beset by the dramatic changes and crises of the communist regime that started in 1949 after a civil war with the Kuomintang. Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou are swept inside the mayhem and forced at times to make tough choices or to give up on their goals. Consequences are often harsh, though not fatal: they manage to survive the various ordeals they get through, keeping intact and strong both their relation and their commitment to jingxi.
This is even more remarkable as trouble rises also from the very world they belong to, from the seduction of Cheng Dieyi by a suave and callous connoisseur as gay as the actor and even more respected, or rather awed, inside the jingxi world, Master Yuan, to the communist zeal and brash ambition of a young man Douzi and Shitou once found abandoned in the street and brought to Master Guan’s school where he got not only a shelter but the same artistic education as them, Xiao Si, who is the quintessential gifted son set to remorselessly betray those he owes his life to. And of course there is the persistent tension between Cheng Dieyi and Juxian and the equally enduring passion between her and Duan Xiaolou, a triangular relationship in flux ending tragically with Juxian’s suicide.
The pervasive redness of the narrative has a troubling effect, as it paints with the same brush very different kinds of violence: it is as if a life in 20th century China was doomed to be only about pain and sorrow, caused from within as well from outside, not only because of politics but also of tradition (which in turns may be shaping political attitudes throughout the eras). Forcing the individual to tell the right words and to voice the expected message uses the same savagery and causes the same humiliation whether it is the brutal courses to learn the skills of a jingxi actor in the 1920s or the humbling lectures and maddening calls for confessions of the Red Guards in the 1960s during the so-called Cultural Revolution.
If the Japanese occupation imposed betrayal as a mean of survival, betrayal remains a necessity to get a chance under the communist regime. War disrupts art and undermines trust but ideology also jeopardizes the operatic traditions and turns friends into foes. Blood is still spilled, suicide always beckons as a solution. For Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou, as for many other Chinese, the century which is ending when director Chen Kaige shoots the film has been an endless trauma, with both modern developments and the legacy of the past bearing down harshly on personal experiences and expectations. Fate is bound to be tragic.
Watching a very old and doting Master Guan spanking again his former pupils who are now big stars and the actors crying for him to punish them indeed may amuse or confuse. The scene, however, may hold a deeper meaning – however appalling their education was, it enabled them to be what they wanted and they sincerely felt indebted to it. This may be a blind loyalty but it is genuine. This may be where the bravery of the leads lies: challenged by chaos and violence, grasping with the complexity of love and the cruelty of men, their loyalty to the jingxi and to each other provide them with enough resilience.
Never mind it rather compounds their troubles, especially for Cheng Dieyi, who clashes right away with Juxian, collaborates with the Japanese to set free Duan Xiaolou who was arrested after scuffling with Japanese troops, or bickers with younger actors, including Xiao Si, as he rejects the new, communist-minded jingxi. Duan Xiaolou is more pragmatic but still reveres the art he performs and stands by his dear friend, even if he does not requite Chen Dieyi’s love. They would still working together in 1977, even if the Cultural Revolution came really close to destroy not only their bond but also themselves (it is arguably one of the most powerful and harrowing sequences of the film, if not the most). For the different political regimes, loyalty is also essential but framed in their own terms, with their own logic of rewards and punishments. Individuals must thus make tough choices – and what is moving is how the lead characters succeed in navigating the troubles so as to stay true to what they hold dear, even as they grow too old for the trade.
The end looks unsatisfactory even as it stands as a brilliantly melodramatic and heartbreaking conclusion. Chen Dieyi’s suicide is hard to understand – does he already imagine that in a new century jingxi would lose its popularity? That would be a clear-sightedness and a loss of confidence in the art that do not really fit with his narrative arc. Is he tired? But the scenes bringing the audience to a nearly contemporaneous time suggest it is rather Duan Xiaolou who gets old and rusty. Has he become too much like his character and thus fatalistic enough to kill himself like the concubine?
The film heavily hints at a blurring of the lines between reality and performance, including, and predominantly, in sexual terms, although in this case the cross-dressing that is a basic feature of jingxi and the essential ambiguity of making male actors playing female parts function too obviously as a facile incitement and a conspicuous background to the character’s gay identity. Yet does Chen Dieyi make the confusion? For someone who repeatedly goofs by spontaneously singing he is a man instead of singing exactly he is a woman and usually shows he knows what he wants, it is hard to believe (if something puts him on treacherous grounds, it is rather opium; but then his addiction does not last, quite fortunately – isn’t it by the way just another dramatic cliché?).
In fact, and more broadly, the different suicides of the story are not really convincing, even if they are shot most dramatically and stand as effective turning points (in the final case releasing the audience back to reality). Their motives are hard to grasp and that is a flaw (even if the denunciations and humiliation suffered at the hands of the Red Guards look a good reason for Juxian to commit suicide, her move does not fit with the spirited, stubborn, resourceful, passionate personality that has been displayed). The crude sentiments between Juxian and Duan Xiaolou and the love triangle they create feel hackneyed and scripted. There is something simplistic in some of the film’s psychological developments even as the mise en scène exceeds expectations through a style that is flamboyant but consistent, smooth but multifaceted.
It is as gorgeous and exciting as a fine jingxi performance – the stage entertainment being an obvious reference and influence for the cinematic one and yet transcended by a director keen on tackling vexing topics for the Communist Party, from homosexuality to the Cultural Revolution (Chen took part in the movement and regretted it). From sweeping camera motions taking the audience in the heat of whatever rush is carrying the characters to an expert use of flames and glows, or at the opposite fog and shades, to highlight a stunning environment or a peculiar atmosphere, this is a treat for moviegoers and it is hard to deny how technically and visually great it is, given it is only the fifth feature of Chen since his debut in 1984 (nine years earlier). He clearly grew up a master fast and delivers a real show that is a refined showcase for the cast too (although actor Leslie Cheung was not a first choice, but then his performance is emotionally awesome, while actress Gong Li most of the time simply flaunts her charm and skill).