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?
There is one constant throughout Farewell, My Concubine: the theme of surrender that permeates the characters’ circumstances. Specifically, the film examines the impact of not only our perseverance (or lack thereof) in the face of political turmoil and ostracization, but also that of those closest to us.
ReplyDeleteDouzi’s, Laizi’s, and Shitou’s childhoods span the 1930s, before the stigmatization and mass eradication of Peking opera. The art form’s heyday spawned a brutal, cutthroat training environment for opera performers, one that used the delicate, lofty demands of opera as “justification” for physical and verbal abuse.
Raised within Master Guan’s troupe, the three are exposed to both sides of the outwardly political yet intrinsically moral dilemma. It was a mode of expression held in such high political and cultural regard at the time yet took a fierce toll on its participants. As for the performers’ personal priorities, they were left to choose between the societal implications and the intrapersonal consequences.
Douzi decides for the entire group upon witnessing a Peking opera performance and deciding to fully commit to his training. This sudden change of heart breaks Laizi’s mental state, causing him to crack under the allure of the instructors’ torment and commit suicide. Contrastingly, Douzi’s decision brings him closer to Shitou, allowing the two of them to improve their craft together and allowing the two to eventually become colleagues onstage and companions and lovers offstage.
From Laizi’s and Shitou’s perspectives, Douzi, a outside factor in their lives, chose to surrender to China’s current political and cultural climate and the consequential artistic demands. As one subsequently chose surrender through death and the other chose perseverance through practice under abusive techniques, their fates were the product of their own choices and that of another person. They embarked on the paths they selected both through self-awareness and influence. The upbringing of the Peking opera trainees is thus a conundrum of partial agency, one in which pivotal choices in one’s life, though made fully through one’s own physical actions, are skewed in a certain emotional or philosophical direction brought upon by peers who either dedicated themselves to an unforgiving hierarchy or allowed it to overwhelm them.
Farewell My Concubine is at its core a reflection of the history the film takes place in. The movie opens in 1977 with the opera finally performing after 22 years. The opera they are performing is also called Farewell My Concubine. The general plot of the opera is a king fights to take over China and loses. During the last moments of his life, he asks for his concubine to come to him. The concubine asks to die with the king to which he refuses, the concubine finds an opportunity and kills herself with her master's blade resisting his order and refusing to leave him. The pair who play these two characters in the opera were best friends from childhood. They grew up together while in the acting troupe where it is eluded too that Cheng Dieyi (the boy who plays the concubine) falls in love with Duan Xiaolou (the person who plays the king). As they get older, and time passes the political situation in China changes drastically. As the Japanese were invading Manchuria student protests were targeting political leadership who were spending their time and money at the Opera House. The characters received expensive gifts from some of the political elite who were busy watching the opera instead of handling the country's problems. After the Japanese invaded the rest of China, the Beijing Opera House was taken over by the invaders. The Japanese let the opera continue functioning relatively the same. There is some oversight and there is always tension in the air, but it was much less concerning than one would expect, especially if they knew about the tension during the real-world occupation. After the Japanese were forced out, the Chinese Civil War began and subsequently the Communist takeover of mainland China. The Communist Party’s suppression of the opera was much greater than even the Japanese. They only allowed two plays, both of which were about the people rising up. The opera and its members faced further persecution as time went on. At one point the opera members were forced to dress up and then got dragged around the city and were pressured to rat out their fellow members. This was something not uncommon during the height of Mao’s control over China. After Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over, China started to lax its Cultural Revolution policies. This is the event that led to the return of the opera after 22 years. This return represents the hope of a new more open China after the repression of the past century.
ReplyDeleteFarewell, My Concubine shows that while we do have free will, there is only one true path, and straying from the path leads to punishments. Throughout the movie, the characters are controlled by the government, the public, and even each other. In the very beginning, Douzi and Laizi run away from the troupe, and nothing stops them. However, when they get back, they clearly regret their decisions as the rest of the troupe is punished. It gets to the point where Laizi ends up hanging himself. They had the free will to run away, but by doing so, they faced indirect punishment, although it still deeply hurt them. In the future, there is a very low chance that any of the members of the troupe would want to do something similar, even if they have the ability to do so.
ReplyDeleteWhen the characters grow up, we see this happening in an even more serious manner when the governments change. The characters have to adapt to the current government. We see Xiaolou and Juxian burning objects that represent the old governments and the banners constantly being changed. If the characters don’t do these actions, the government could imprison them or even execute them like Yuan Shiqing. This manifests in the confrontation in front of the flame, where Xiaolou accuses Dieyi of being a traitor. During this scene, we see friends turn on each other, as well as Xiaolou saying he doesn’t love Juxian. The characters have little say in this scene and throughout the movie as angry mobs or otherwise control what actions they can take.