Soul Haunted by Painting 画魂

Where were we? Yes, La Peintre (Huang Shuqing, 1995), based on the life of Pan Yuliang (1895-1977). One of China’s first generation of western-style painters, she attracted controversy not only as a female artist and painter of nudes, but also for her background – she was sold into prostitution after the death of her parents and became the second wife of an official before training as a painter. China Daily referred (2002, ref below) to the trad Chinese influences in her work, but the images that I found had a strong flavour of Gauguin – see Christies catalogue at http://www.christies.com/promos/nov05/2203/promo_gallery.asp?page=2

As she develops as a painter we see some of the familiar tensions of 1920s/1930s China refracted through her career, from the opposition that the painting of nudes provoked, to distrust of working women, as Pan is parachuted into a prestigious post at Nanjing University. Eveninghawk, another blogger writing on the film, commented that many discussions of Pan have focused on her past, sidelining her significance as a painter (see post at http://www.eveninghawk.com/links/index.php?p=70&c=1 and a China Daily article on exhibition of her work at http://www.china.org.cn/english/33608.htm). The film, on the other hand, gathers momentum as Pan’s attention shifts from home to studio. The earliest brothel passages seem stilted and theatrical, but the style and colour of the film change as Yuliang marries, moves to Shanghai, and begins painting.

In some senses this is a May Fourth liberation story: Yuliang finds happiness with a man who believes in marriage for love and does not hold her time in the brothel against her; and despite the hostility that her painting attracts, it gives her independence and status. But it also shows the continuing vulnerability of women at the hands of self-consciously ‘progressive’ artists in Paris as well as the conservative establishment of Nanjing University. That conservatism forces Yuliang back to Paris because she cannot paint what she wants in China, and it seems more plausible than Zanhua’s tolerance of Yuliang’s painting, which runs out only when she includes a nude self-portrait in her Nanjing exhibition.

Zanhua’s story, on the other hand, which runs in the background of Yuliang’s shows some of the stresses that men experienced – again the Lu Xun problems (what is art for? freedom of expression &c &c) are quite familiar to us, but Zanhua’s problems are different. We first meet him as an official (important enough for the brothel staff to offer him Yuliang), and later see him leaving to fight (Yunnan?), but it is obvious as the film progresses that his career is stalling, and his professional decline mirrors Yuliang’s blossoming as an artist. After 1949, Zanhua remains in China, navigating the new political landscape, in which Yuliang’s teacher and Muni are condemned as rightists. So while Yuliang wins autonomy through her art, Zanhua’s life is – throughout the film – a negotiation with necessity (is that Dorothy Ko on footbinding?) of the kind that was more commonly imposed on women.

What really struck me about the film, though, was the portrayal of the marriages – Zanhua, first wife and Yuliang. We are often given the Lu Xun line on first/arranged marriages in this era (that an unwilling young man was shackled to a woman who was unfit, emotionally or intellectually, to be a true companion; who was, functionally or essentially, part of the oppressive old order … and that he was not only entitled but also in a sense obliged to escape from the marriage in interest of abstract progress as well as own happiness) but this was a much subtler picture, and we see the cohabitation of husband and two wives as a situation that is stressful and at times demeaning for all three. While, emotionally, Zanhua’s attachment to Yuliang appears unchallenged, he is shown as experiencing genuine conflict between love and his obligations to his first wife. There is a beautiful passage after Yuliang returns from studying in Paris in which she is trying to build bridges with Zanhua’s son Muni, and thinking – on an idyllic boat trip one afternoon – that she is succeeding; but his joy on seeing his mother when she returns to Nanjing is a reminder that relationship with Yuliang is built on convention, not love.

I’m not a serious Gong Li fan, but I think this shows what she can do when she is given a role that goes beyond muse or decoration.

Mei Ah, on the other hand, deserve a fat smack for making a DVD that simply stopped playing in the last ??half hour of the film. Sigh.