Friday, March 18, 2005
the talented auteur
au·teur n.A filmmaker, usually a director, who exercises creative control over his or her works and has a strong personal style.
She adores chinese filmmakers zhang yimou, hou hsiao hsien and chen kaige for their multi- talented works over the years, and in particular zhang. Though there’ve been critics slamming the 5th generation auteur of trying to inculcate patriarchal attitudes through his films highlighting women’s repressed desire and tragic ends, she thinks not.
he often gives his female lead a strong character, often steering the whole narration and film alongside the male. The female is thus represented as a step towards modernity with their longing for liberation while the male is seen clinging hopelessly to traditions, pulling the female back into the stifling Chinese Confucian beliefs and tradition of oppression. Confucianism where it structures society to create identities that impel actions to strengthen and proliferate male and female identities, leaving little room or no room at all for women in tragic situations.
zhang shows recognition of the chinese female’s plight, understanding their difficult and almost impossible struggle under the subjugation of the traditional institution (husband and matriarch mother-in-law). Although these women never quite survive physically (red sorghum and judou) or psychologically (raise the red lantern) in his films, their passion, rebellion and courage to break traditions depicts her as a force to be reckoned with.
how she loved his epic tearjerker about the fate and victimization of a beautiful woman in raise the red lantern. The amount of grief, sadness, torment and futility of songlian’s fight (the heroine) was beyond description. The life of a young, lively, and bright lady was lost when she was forced to endure a household of sick rituals and inevidently a loss of self-identity and mind. The aural allegory used throughout the film amplified her desperate plea to be free of the house and its claustrophobic traditions. The film was an excellent depiction of how traditions are slowly destroying the modern female form in their fight for emancipation from the ancient chinese world.
Does it mean that transgression would only result in a bad end?
Death or suicide?
Or does death simply mean an offering to spiritual freedom where women are often revered as saintly saviours and dark angels?
The beauty of chinese films lies here.
bee wrote this at 11:13 AM
