Raise the Red Lantern | The "Other" Film Spectator

Director: Yimou Zhang
Rating: PG

“It is a woman’s fate.” That was the tragic rationale for 19-year-old Songlian’s (Li Gong) for wanting to be a concubine after having to truncate her education at the university due to her father’s untimely death. The film opens with the Bergmanesque close-up shot of the nearly tearful, but composed, Songlian telling her mother that she has thought long and hard about being a concubine for the older and affluent Chen Zuoquian (Jingwu Ma). It was this poignant countenance that has foreshadowed her personal sentencing—as an impoverished woman who has no choice, particularly in early 20^th century China amid the Warlord Era (1916–1928), but to be a feudal nobleman’s concubine.

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) is Zhang’s early masterpiece, which preceded a series of visually vibrant works that have captured the western audience (e.g., Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and The Curse of The Yellow Flower). In Raise the Red Lantern, it possesses the emotional authenticity that provocatively lures the most contemplative spectator. House of Flying Daggers is saturated with a mosaic of rich colors, which compensates for the soap opera-like love triangle. In contrast, Raise the Red Lantern not only exposes the horrors, the tragedy, the entrapment, the indignity, the futility of being a concubine, it also offers a haunting depiction of female oppression, particularly in a patriarchal world where women, especially impoverished women, must reduce themselves to the indignity of participating in a competitive harem.

The film offers a refreshing look at recycled themes such as betrayal, the false promise of affluence, and female exploitation. Yet, the most prominent theme that permeates throughout the film is the tragedy of social mobility, especially when it is gained through sordid and disgraceful means. Songlian, the fourth mistress and the youngest mistress, takes us through the loss of the self, the loss of dignity, and the loss of personal freedom.

Zhang divides the story, into four seasons—summer, autumn, winter, and then summer again. Colors that symbolize each of the seasons, sometimes overtly used, have their own symbolic purposes. As part of Zhang’s directorial signature, each dominant color carries both psychological and emotional implications, which sets the tone for each seasonal chapter. Summer, the beginning of Songlian’s baptism to the hapless, concubine world is saturated with varying shades of reds. Yet, the red hues eventually become symbolic of lust, raging temperaments, and ominousness. Songlian learns that having the master’s attention places her at the apex of the concubine hierarchy. In turn, she is granted certain “benefits” such as receiving foot massages and deciding on the menu for the evening’s dinner.

However, the elitism is only fleeting and temporary. By the end of the evening, the prize, the red lantern, is moved from one lair to another, depending on the master’s decision. The lantern is given to the concubine with whom he wants to spend the evening. Each concubine faces the humiliation of watching the lantern move from lair to lair, causing the concubines to be pitted against each other.

The third concubine, the beautiful opera singer, and the second, the aging and soon-to-be infertile concubine, have learned the art of thwarting or outdoing their counterparts’ plans to gain the master’s attention. Only the first and eldest concubine (also known as the master’s wife) refuses to engage in such competition. Because she is the heir-producing retiree, especially after having bore the master a son decades earlier, she is now considered obsolete. However, by being the first amongst the concubines, she is considered the “ruler” of the household when the master is away. In spite of this prestige, her life is no better. She is invisible to the master’s eyes since his attention is directed towards his younger and more beautiful concubines. For Songlian, she quickly learns that she, too, is easily disposable and oblivious after seeing the lantern removed from her lair. Jealousy ignites her desire to participate in the demeaning game.

By autumn, the educated and astute Songlian realizes that it is impossible to win the master completely, regardless of her efforts. She is simply just like the others—her “worth” is at the mercy of her master’s self-indulgence. The role of the concubine is merely to satisfy the master and when the satisfaction wanes, he moves on to the other. The autumn color palette consists of crisp yellows and browns, which signifies Songlian’s waning desire for life as her sense of self is taken away. Her zest for life is gone. After realizing that her flute was confiscated and burned by the master, she, too, has felt her life (both past and present) ebbing away. Moreover, the flute, once belonging to her father, was the only memento of her previous life.

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Zhang, indeed, is able to dissect the emotions of women under the ownership of feudal noblemen, through Songlian’s character. What does it mean to exist if you are a rich man’s concubine? What does she have that is her own? It is certainly not her sense of self. The opera singer, the third concubine, finds solace in her affair with the doctor but is fatally punished for her lack of loyalty and for shamefully cuckholding her master. Songlian not only sees the hypocrisy, she also sees the imprisonment of the individual self. She is merely one of the four concubines, a servant to her master’s carnal whims. There is no freedom; there is no real love; there is no happiness. There is only disgrace.

Although the master serves as a powerful force in the concubine’s lives, Zhang masterfully makes him a less conscious figure throughout the film. He rarely speaks. Visually, he is far from the camera’s lens, he is hidden behind a barely transparent curtain, or his back is turned. The main focus is the women, more specifically, Songlian, and the lack of respect and disgrace they feel.

By winter, Songlian feels that she is better off dead than living the life of a concubine. The stark whiteness of the winter, which makes every scene cold, sterile, and bleak, punctuates Songlian’s ontological futility. Death seems to be the more attractive option in spite of the opulence that surrounds her. There is no yearn for life because there is no life in the first place.

The film ends with summer again and this time, a fifth mistress is welcomed to the household. After witnessing the turmoil, the corruption, the horrors of being at the mercy of another man’s selfishness, Songlian becomes insane. Her insanity is her final resort mainly because it is the denial of the past, the denial of the present, the denial of the future.

Raise the Red Lantern is by far the most haunting tragedy in eastern cinema. It is poignant; it is revelatory; and it is a bold exposé. The film can be perceived as a parable about the decisions women make, particularly in their desperate need to protect their financial security while losing the security of their true selves. The film does not equivocate in determining which has more value. The indignity of being part of a man’s “other” women will merely make a woman just that—the other and nothing else.

July 5, 2014