Raise the Red Lantern - Zhang Yimou

A lantern can only accentuate the beauty of everything around it, but the shadows it creates cannot hide the deceit, lies and misery that permeate through the spirits and ghosts of the house it illuminates. Raise the Red Lantern, a stellar attempt by the Chinese director Zhang Yimou, manages to expose those very ghosts that lurk behind the resplendent façade. The fact that the palace and the household is an oblique reference to the Chinese dictatorial government [and its suppression of its own residents post Tiananmen tragedy] gives this movie its double edged sword like character. It challenges the righteousness (of the methods) of the very government that embodied brutality in all its might, while capturing the agonizing journey of a concubine.

After the demise of her father and faced with the prospect of abject penury, 19-year old, partly-educated, beautiful Songlian takes wedding oaths with Master Chen, a wealthy polygamous warlord with three wives and a palace of a house that is run like a courthouse with perfect decorum and spartan rules. Upon joining her sisters or fellow concubines, she takes the coveted seat of the most favored wife, satiating her master’s carnal desires night after night. As the custom goes, the privileged wife for the night gets the lanterns leading to her doorsteps lit up as the sign of the master’s wish to be with that wife for the night, in addition to other perks (like preferred treatment from domestic help, special foot massage, and the choice of food).

With youth and beauty on her side, young and naïve Songlian makes enemies in her new abode. She soon finds out that behind the lusty colors and splendor, lurk the evils of jealousy, hatred and deception between the wives (with the exception of one) who are constantly vying for the master’s attention, waiting for those words, “Light the lantern in the … house”.

The first wife, a rather old woman, has resigned to her fate of a forgotten, discarded human item who the master seems to have only for the reasons of dispute resolution, and other supervisory tasks. The second wife is a fairly pleasant woman who presents gifts to Songlian and wins over her confidence. The third wife, a beautiful ex-opera singer is a jealous and manipulative woman who constantly tries to tip the scales in her favor with her child-like attention seeking antics.

Songlian soon realizes the vicious games of backstabbing and subterfuge going on in the household, and becomes an active player herself. She also learns of other disturbing things – her maid Yan’er’s aspirations of becoming a mistress herself and her affair with the master; the existence of a mysterious room on the rooftop where many previous concubines have met with some horrendous fates; the truth about the 2nd wife Zhuoyun, aptly described as one who “has the face of a Buddha, but the heart of a scorpion,” who is the real witch.  Moreover, she finds out that the 3rd wife, Meishan, is having an illicit affair with the family doctor. Songlian doesn’t reveal this new found information to anyone else after knowing that Meishan doesn’t mean harm.

To win over her master’s affections over the other concubines, Songlian feigns pregnancy in order to get the preferred treatment. However, Zhuoyun and her accomplice Yan’er find out the truth and ensure that she is duly punished by her enraged master. In a fit of rage, Songlian uses Yan’er’s obsession to be a mistress to get her punished, leading to her unexpected death. This sets off a chain of events in the last quarter of the movie, affecting everyone and leading to apocalyptic explosion of death, madness and grief. The toll it takes cannot be measured and cannot be revealed for its sheer magnitude.

This movie is not only stunningly made from the presentation point-of-view, it also delivers a camouflaged political message within, invoking the ire of the Chinese government, that quickly censored it in the wake of the Tiananmen Square tragedy. The opulent sets, graveyard like scenery and bright colors, coupled with long close-up shots make every character larger than life, even those as simple as the other wives, and the master himself, who, like the tyrannical government he represents, is faceless, but conspicuously omnipresent (It is interesting to note that the master's face is never shown clearly in the movie).

In a very Orwellian way, Zhang Yimou has told a rather bold story in the most soul-shaking manner. The title Raise The Red Lantern itself could very well refer to Red Chinese flag – a remarkable analogy in itself. The master and household represent the oppressive government and its unyielding antediluvian laws that bring more misery than order. A certain death indicates the cold treatment meted out to dissenters and outlaws, while Songlian’s own metamorphosis and ultimate breakdown is reflective of the people who become pawns in the games of politics and submit to the system. With every concubine looking out for her own interest, subterfuge is the weapon to keep the status quo intact, much like in a society such as China (back in the post Tiananmen  days), where the righteous (or gullible) perished, and the manipulative succeeded. At the same time, it also brings to the fore the issues of suppression of women and the decadence of a male-centric society in the pre-communist China (and also the rest of the world).

Yimou is not merely a story-teller, he is a messenger, and he does a splendid job with arguably his most famous and critically acclaimed work to-date. But a director can do only so much. He can only put the right ingredients at the right time into the cauldron of a film. The taste and flavor is perfected by the actors. And Yimou found that connoisseur in Gong Li. With fair certainty, it can be said that only someone of her caliber could have embodied Songlian’s complex character with such ease that one could easily be fooled into believing that she is a reincarnation of a woman such as Songlian, if she truly existed.

Raise The Red Lantern shall make you shudder by the sheer force of its cinematic resplendence. It is no mean feat to have so much in a movie with so much simplicity, and Yimou has proven that he is no less than his famous peer of the Class of 1982 - Chen Kaige (who directed Farewell my Concubine, another classic)

Trailer