Rituals, the Traditional Arts, and the Confucian Concept of Li

 Through out the film A City of Sadness we see images of the traditional arts such as the Peking Opera and classical Chinese music as well as rituals such as funerals and weddings.  Homes often have shrines with ritually prepared food. These ritual activities are celebrated in Confucian philosophy as a way to humanize and sensitize those who practice them.  In short, culture can make people better.  Yet what is the film saying about these ritualistic activities?  Sometimes these are contrasted with other pursuit such as photography and gambling. Sometimes the arts are shown under direct threat as when Wen-heung (the oldest brother) breaks an erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument.  Are the arts and Chinese culture under threat? What is the relationship between the modern world and tradition?  Is Confucius right about the potential for the arts to civilize and make us better? 

A Hospital of Sadness?

 One of the central images of the film A City of Sadness is a corridor just outside a hospital.  The movie begins with the journals of Hinome who is working at the hospital.  It is the location where Weng-Leung is cured of his madness, where victims of the February 28th incident seek aid and where at the end of the film she has her child.  Why is this image repeated throughout the film?  What is the symbolic function of the hospital?  Who needs health -- and will they receive it?

The Gangster State

 A City of Sadness opens with the announcement of the Japanese surrender which will mark  the withdrawal of the Japanese overlords after over 50 years of rule.  The movies focuses on the Li family as they negotiate this new political reality.  Nationalist troops and government officials as well as Shanghai-based gangsters descend on the island.  At the center of the film is the February 28 Incident (1947) in which the National government suppressed a popular rebellion in which at least 18,000 civilians were killed.  The Li family has three brothers (a forth never returns from the war) : Wen-heung, the oldest brother who runs a bar and is a small time gangster, Wen-Leung,  a gangster who is the Shanghai-gangsters betray to the police (and who suffers brain damage), and Wen-Ching, a deaf photographer (and fellow traveler of revolutionaries).  What is the movie telling about the political realities of Nationalist Chinese Taiwan?  What about the use of violence for political or personal ends?  

Not Your Grandfather's Love Triangle

At the center of the movie Farewell, My Concubine is a love story -- more specifically a love triangle.  Yet it is not the more traditional story of two men in love with the same woman.  In this story, it involves a man and a women in love with the same man.  Furthermore, the love in the story is put through a test of loyalty as Xiaolou, the man at the center of the triangle denounces his opera partner and his wife under the pressures of the Cultural Revolution  (unlike the character of the Concubine who remains faithful by killing herself).  What is this film telling us the nature of love and loyalty?  About the status of gay men and women in the film(and the legitimacy of their desires)?  Is love a force for good -- or curse -- or somewhere in between?

Are You Looking At Me?

Mirrors are everywhere in Farewell My Concubine: we see a scene by looking at its reflection in a mirror, characters see things in a mirror (such as when Dieyi sees his replacement as the Concubine) and we see characters in the mirror.   Furthermore, images are obscured by screens, fire and smoke, and even the water of an aquarium.  What is going on with mirrors and other indirect or obscured images?

The Weight of History: Fate or Free Will?

The film Farewell, My Concubine is an epic film (both in historical scope as well as duration of time) that explores the dramatic social and political upheavals in 20th century China: from the establishment of the Republic of China, to the Japanese Occupation, the Liberation of China, the Civil War, the establishment of the People's Republic and the Cultural Revolution.  At the same time it tells the personal story of two young actors and friends and the women who comes between them.  What is this film telling us about the intersection of history and the individual?  Must we accept our fate?  Do we have any agency or free will? Do the concerns of a handful of people matter in the grand scope of history? 

Art Imitating Life -- Or Life Imitating Life

Farewell, My Concubine is a film that has a opera troop at its core, with examples of performances of Beijing Opera, including the titular opera.  We see actors putting on (and sometimes taking off) make-up and costumes, we see them rehearse and perform on stage, and meet their teachers, managers and fans. There are also parallels between the characters, plot and themes of the movie and the opera that it features.  Is the movie telling us something about how life is like a play (as in the Shakespearean idea that "all the world's a stage and all the people merely players")?  Is it telling us that a society's views on aesthetics is related to politics (can a just society have bad art)?   Are the parallels from opera to movie helping us understand the characters in the movie?  What is the film saying about the relationship between art and life?

Style and Substance

The Japanese New Wave sought to challenge the usual methods for filmmaking of the older generation.  These iconoclasts pushed the boundaries of film style and technique as well as subject matter and themes.  In Death By Hanging Oshima tackles taboo topics around violence and sex at the same time he is experimenting with the grammar of visual storytelling.  For instance, he uses unrealistic mise-en-scene, voiceovers and breaking the fourth wall inspired by Brecht's alienation effect. In addition he uses longer takes, quick camera movement and still photography.  How does the style of his filmmaking reinforce -- or perhaps undercut -- the message and narratives of his films?

Appearance v. Reality

Death By Hanging is a film in which it is difficult to discern the difference between appearance and reality.  Government officials pretend to be family members of the accused R and re-enact scenes from his life and his crime in order that he recalls his memories and regain his identity.  The education minister, furthermore, is so zealous in his acting that he commits the same crime.  R himself claims he enacted his criminal acts first in fantasy and when reality mimicked his dreams, he did not fully understand that he was committing a crime in reality.  Indeed, only when he realized that he had caused actual harm did he feel remorse.  When R's victim is resurrected and becomes his  sister, only some of the officials can see her and others need to rely on other people's description.  Is the film telling us anything about the distinction between reality and illusion and our ability to discern it?  Is it saying anything about the act of pretending (or perhaps any fiction including the film itself)?  Or is this just another one of the filmmakers pranks to confuse and confound us?

A Call to Arms?

Death By Hanging addresses some hot button political issues in 1960's Japan including the mistreatment of the Korean minority and the use of the death penalty.  It also portrays government officials in a less than complimentary light. However, it is not at all a straightforward expose of or polemic for an issue.  Does the film make a political statement or social critique?  How does the radical style of the film contribute to its politics?  What message -- if any -- do you see in the film?