Purple Butterfly is an entirely different kettle of fish. Whereas Guizi is shot (apart from final frames) in black and white and is quite straightforward in presentation of narrative, Butterfly is a film noir shot in colour (though often in near darkness) and uses flashback & jumpy editing to interrupt narrative flow. Put simply, this makes it quite confusing (did we see Yiling get shot? Has she survived or is this a flashback?) but, on the other hand, this means that film plays with what we think we know about the unfolding plot, which is as good a way of approaching the war as I can think of.
I think it's slightly puzzling that Butterfly attracted less criticism as a film-set-during-war than Guizi. Release was somewhat delayed by SARS outbreak (where did I read that?), but unlike Guizi it doesn't seem to have been banned. But if we subject it to same kind of reading (and admit again that this not what Lou Ye aiming for - his statement on the Zhang Ziyi site seems almost deliberately delphic) it makes some equally troubling suggestions about the war/pre-war period.
The affair between Itami and Xinxia is (in context of 1920s Manchuria, and esp in light of subsequent events) moderately controversial, but that is defused by Xinxia's subsequent choices - after Itami's return to Tokyo and her brother's death at hands of Japanese, she chooses resistance to Japan over love for Itami and while we may see internal conflicts over that choice I don't think there is any suggestion that she seriously doubts what she is doing so - in conventional terms - her earlier mistake is redeemed, and Itami's reversion to stock Japanese imperialist confirms the rightness of that decision.
But although Itami plays to type, it's less certain that Xinxia (as Ding Hui) and other resistance fighters do. These, after all, are supposed (according to the master narrative of war) to be the noble defenders of China's sovereignty and dignity, yet Lou Ye does not seem at all interested in pursuing that line. The resistance cell members are allowed to be flawed and self-interested (human...), and indeed they seem even less sympathetic than stereotype in contrast to Situ and Xiling, who radiate a warmth and innocence lacking anywhere else in film but who are destroyed accidentally (casually?) in crossfire of struggle against Japanese.
So is Lou Ye more respectful than Jiang Wen of the sensitivities of those who feel that the war has to be portrayed 'correctly'? I'm not sure he is. He shows a lot more (tangentially, but inevitably because of where film is set) of orthodox story in terms of popular resistance to Japan, and leaves us in no doubt of Japanese brutalities in war and pre-war period (the final sequence of archive footage, for example); but like Jiang he declines to assign leadership of resistance explicitly to CCP; he allows Xinxia's question as she leaves for the pivotal encounter at the railway station 'What are we fighting for?' to hang in the air unanswered; and the question of responsibility for the destruction of Situ and Xiling is also left open.
So why the difference? Can you say things (hide things) in a convoluted noirish thriller that you can't in a film that visually echoes early postwar patriotic drama and tells an unorthodox story straight through from beginning to end? Can the masters of the master narrative simply not keep up with Lou Ye's style?
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Talking about the war
Chinese version of Guizi laile (Devils on the doorstep Jiang Wen) now available - does that mean that there is a time limit on ban or do opinions change on what can and can't be said about the war?
Discussing Guizi laile and comparing with Purple Butterfly (Lou Ye) suggests that boundaries of the sayable aren't entirely clear-cut. Guizi attracted criticism (they tell us) for whole range of reasons: showing Japanese soldiers giving sweets to Chinese children (Japanese forces published huge number of photos aiming to suggest peaceful co-existence during war and these have been reproduced in numerous Chinese discussions of wartime propaganda, so (a) it's not exactly a new image and (b) these actions/images already have an established place in Chinese narratives of the war as examples of duplicity); failure to show practical resistance/moral lead from Chinese Communist Party (see how that resonates with recent research on local politics in wartime...; though the fim doesn't read as a warming commentary on anyone involved in active resistance ["who?"]); showing Ma Dasan and Chinese villagers as 'buffoons' (and I think the sensitivities here are quite well known... but on the other hand the 'buffoon' thesis is based, I think, both on a profound mis-reading of the film, and on a fairly startling mis-reading of the historical context).
Obviously the film is not a historical document. But if we turn things around and read the history into the film (and equally possible that Jiang Wen would have his own objections to that), I think it gives us a more subtle reading of the history of the war as personal experience. First, let's look at where Jiang (as opposed to author of original short story on which film was based) set the film, in rural east Hebei. This area suffered endemic disorder in 1920s and was managed by a puppet (Japanese-controlled) regime in 1935 - so by end of war, locals would have been exposed to Japanese presence and a fair amount of pro-Japanese public discourse for several years longer than many occupied areas further south. So the clear message of resistance that we are told to expect all in occupied areas to have absorbed by later years of war would have been subject to fair amount of interference from other sources. And it is possible therefore that Ma Dasan cannot act with reference to a clear and widely accepted moral framework, because - there and then - there wasn't one. It's obvious that some of the common themes in wartime debate were familiar to characters in film - see references to 'traitors' - but it seems to me that Ma Dasan's basic problem is that he wants to do the right thing, but cannot work out what that is. And this is not buffoonery, but a source of communal/personal tension and anxiety. We see buffoonery in some places - the swordsman, for example - but overall I think the film says more about the unprecedented and intolerable moral pressures that the war placed on individuals.
Whereas Purple Butterfly is a different beast altogether - of which more next time.
Discussing Guizi laile and comparing with Purple Butterfly (Lou Ye) suggests that boundaries of the sayable aren't entirely clear-cut. Guizi attracted criticism (they tell us) for whole range of reasons: showing Japanese soldiers giving sweets to Chinese children (Japanese forces published huge number of photos aiming to suggest peaceful co-existence during war and these have been reproduced in numerous Chinese discussions of wartime propaganda, so (a) it's not exactly a new image and (b) these actions/images already have an established place in Chinese narratives of the war as examples of duplicity); failure to show practical resistance/moral lead from Chinese Communist Party (see how that resonates with recent research on local politics in wartime...; though the fim doesn't read as a warming commentary on anyone involved in active resistance ["who?"]); showing Ma Dasan and Chinese villagers as 'buffoons' (and I think the sensitivities here are quite well known... but on the other hand the 'buffoon' thesis is based, I think, both on a profound mis-reading of the film, and on a fairly startling mis-reading of the historical context).
Obviously the film is not a historical document. But if we turn things around and read the history into the film (and equally possible that Jiang Wen would have his own objections to that), I think it gives us a more subtle reading of the history of the war as personal experience. First, let's look at where Jiang (as opposed to author of original short story on which film was based) set the film, in rural east Hebei. This area suffered endemic disorder in 1920s and was managed by a puppet (Japanese-controlled) regime in 1935 - so by end of war, locals would have been exposed to Japanese presence and a fair amount of pro-Japanese public discourse for several years longer than many occupied areas further south. So the clear message of resistance that we are told to expect all in occupied areas to have absorbed by later years of war would have been subject to fair amount of interference from other sources. And it is possible therefore that Ma Dasan cannot act with reference to a clear and widely accepted moral framework, because - there and then - there wasn't one. It's obvious that some of the common themes in wartime debate were familiar to characters in film - see references to 'traitors' - but it seems to me that Ma Dasan's basic problem is that he wants to do the right thing, but cannot work out what that is. And this is not buffoonery, but a source of communal/personal tension and anxiety. We see buffoonery in some places - the swordsman, for example - but overall I think the film says more about the unprecedented and intolerable moral pressures that the war placed on individuals.
Whereas Purple Butterfly is a different beast altogether - of which more next time.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Chinese films
Continuing exploration of Chinese films - World without Thieves (Feng Xiaogang) and King of Masks (Wu Tianming) this week.
WWT was a lucky experiment and quite a strange film in some ways - first 20 minutes looked like a Chinese TV drama [of about 5 years ago]; next hour or so was a very slow road movie with pickpocketing sequences shot in style of martial arts film; last section had almost fairytale quality.
KoM much more conventional beast - traditional entertainer tries to adopt boy to train in dying art, discovers is in fact girl, rejects; reconciled; strong overtones of redemption all round.
Both are quite sentimental in places, though WWT gets away with it, whereas KoM on the whole doesn't and more interesting parts of film get submerged in what looks in the end like quite an arbitrary plot complication.
Unsentimental Chinese films: The World, Devils on the Doorstep...............?
(Mind you, after watching The Others last night I am feeling more than averagely kindly disposed towards the concept of the feel-good ending.)
WWT was a lucky experiment and quite a strange film in some ways - first 20 minutes looked like a Chinese TV drama [of about 5 years ago]; next hour or so was a very slow road movie with pickpocketing sequences shot in style of martial arts film; last section had almost fairytale quality.
KoM much more conventional beast - traditional entertainer tries to adopt boy to train in dying art, discovers is in fact girl, rejects; reconciled; strong overtones of redemption all round.
Both are quite sentimental in places, though WWT gets away with it, whereas KoM on the whole doesn't and more interesting parts of film get submerged in what looks in the end like quite an arbitrary plot complication.
Unsentimental Chinese films: The World, Devils on the Doorstep...............?
(Mind you, after watching The Others last night I am feeling more than averagely kindly disposed towards the concept of the feel-good ending.)
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