Part of the Picture: No Country for Young Women
NO COUNTRY FOR YOUNG WOMEN
JUNE 7, 2008 - IF YOU WANTED TO KNOW what stoic resignation looked like, in person, you could do worse than to focus on the centre of the screen at the beginning of Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern. There’s Songlian (Gong Li), dead-eyed and dull-voiced, requesting her mother to stop talking about the thing she’s been going on about for three days. “All right, I’ll get married,” says Songlian. “Good!” exclaims the mother, whom we do not see. “To what sort of man?” The question brings about a flicker of animation in Songlian. The eyes begin to sparkle – but with unshed tears. The voice shows signs of achieving a semblance of emotion – but it’s merely the effort of restraint.
“What sort of man?” she scoffs, and brings up the premise of the picture, the utter lack of empowerment of women in a society where men made the rules. (This, by the way, is China in the early twentieth century.) “Is it up to me?” Pointing out that her mother keeps talking about money – though, the way Songlian delivers this accusation, it isn’t so much a whiplash as wearied acceptance; the family is in dire straits after the death of the father – she suggests it might as well be a rich man. After all, she’s not going to complete her university education – she was pulled out after six months because of the family situation – and if the wealth of knowledge is now beyond her gasp, a life of affluence could, perhaps, serve as compensation.
The mother is worried. (We still do not see her, and we never will; it’s as if her concerns are so universal – get your child married off! feed the family! – that it’s hardly necessary to know what she looks like in this particular instance. We’ve seen her all around us, all our lives.) “Marry a rich man and you’ll only be his concubine,” she warns gently. Songlian pauses, as if weighing in her mind the exactly nature, the exact sequence of words that will seal her destiny. Then, “Let me be a concubine. Isn’t that a woman’s fate?” After that melodramatic declaration, the tears can be held back no longer. They course down one cheek, then another – and Songlian sets off to become the Fourth Mistress of the Chen family.
The absence of a male in her own household may have driven Songlian to seek protection under another man – but she still appears to want to prove a point about her independence. Why else would she ignore the bridal sedan sent by the Chen family and walk to the estate herself? Why else would she, after reaching there, brush aside the offer of a manservant to carry her suitcase? “I can manage,” she says, as she’s led to her chambers, through yawning courtyards so silent, so still, the gravelly crunch of footsteps is all we hear till they halt. “Wait here,” he says. “I’ll go take a look.”
And then, through the silence, the sloshing of water. Songlian turns and notices a maidservant washing clothes. She walks over, squats in front of a vessel, rolls up her sleeves, flicks a braid of hair behind her, and begins to scrub her hands. “Who are you?” the curious maidservant wants to know. Songlian doesn’t reply. She continues her attempts to erase the grimy evidence of her long journey. Just then, the manservant, having ascertained that things are in order, yells out, “Fourth Mistress, please come in.” The maidservant looks up startled.
Her expression hardens. “So the Fourth Mistress is you!” she exclaims, and pulls away from Songlian the vessel of water. (We don’t know this yet, but she’s been harbouring foolish hopes of becoming the Fourth Mistress.) Songlian is puzzled by this blatant hostility, but she quickly asserts herself. “Yes. I’m the Fourth Mistress!” She rolls down her sleeves and issues her first command in the Chen household. “Bring my suitcase inside.” And as she walks away imperiously, you wonder: Songlian wouldn’t let the manservant so much as touch her suitcase, but with this girl, here, there’s no such qualm. Has the power risen to her head already? Or has she simply begun to delight in the newfound knowledge that, however bad the cards life has dealt her, this servant girl has it worse?
Copyright ©2008 The New Indian Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
“House of Flying Daggers”, another Yimou movie, also emphasizes the Chinese obsession with hierarchy pretty well. But I particulary like the last line “however bad the cards life has dealt her, this servant girl has it worse? “. Trust you to see Kannadasan in Zhang Yimou: “Unakkum Keezhe ULLavar Kodi, Ninaithu-p paarthu nimmathi naadu”.
brangan/Deepauk M: What am I doing on this blog amid geniuses like you guys? I bet Kannadasan has already answered that…Care to step on that memory minefield of yours and let that landmine of an answer explode into our shared space here? Btw, this particular KK line was one of my father’s favorites…thanks for reminding.
Deepauk M: Oh, that’s a good way to look at it. And actually, a lot of Chinese films of the nineties deal with this hierarchy. Flying Daggers and Hero, by the way, were ravishing to look at, no?
Power struggles and hierarchies are common themes in Chinese films. And yes, almost all wuxia films are a visual treat. Hero is an excellent case in point.
It’s heartening to see good Asian flicks being marketed and recognized well in other parts of the world. Among somewhat recent releases, if you haven’t already seen it, I’d recommend ‘The Warlords’. If you’re even remotely a fan of movies from East Asia, this Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro starrer is a must watch. Of course, in Korean with English subtitles.
Pradeep: I’ve heard lots of good things about Warlords. Haven’t been able to lay hands on a DVD though…
Ah, okay. Err sorry, in the last line, I meant Mandarin, not Korean.
Oh the visuals and he sound have been quite spectacular in all the recent Cantonese(HK and Mainland) and Mandarin movies I’ve seen of late. However for the “Golden Flower” movie the look of the movie was just too loud. Of course I might be prejudiced coz I wasn’t really able to get into the movie.
.
I was talking to a Chinese acquaintance recently and Yimou came up in conversation. Roughly paraphrasing, she said ” He used to be so good. We thought he was a genius. We were so proud of him. Now he just disappoints us”. Its funny when things like subliminal brainwashing comes out in everyday conversation
oops *come out
brangan/Deepauk M: If you guys are planning to exhume KK (or do the Phoenix thing) to have him answer my question, no need to take the trouble. Allen Ginsberg answered it for me (in an interview with NPR’s Fresh Air a year before his death — I listened to it on a library CD) en route to work yesterday. Ginsberg fondly recalled being in his thirties and having this wonderful gift of kinship/cameraderie with the likes of Kerouac and Burroughs. Paraphrasing AG, “…their genius ignited my own natural talents…sort of upgraded my own intelligence.” Yessss! Thank you Mr. Ginsberg, and I loved listening to your now-American-classic “Howl.”
Oops. “Camaraderie.” Guess I must’ve subconsciously channeled “camera ready,” what with reading about cinema way more than I ever have, these days..
Pradeep: You the one who mentioned Pan’s Labyrinth on Ramsu’s blog the other day? Wonder if brangan and/or Deepauk M has seen it. No one I know has seen it so far, and since it’s the only foreign film I’ve watched in the last couple of years, I’d like to know what either of them thought about it.
Sagarika: It’s a great film.
Sagarika: I read an English translation of the script (was available for free somewhere on the net) before watching Pan’s Labyrinth. It is a brilliant movie and an excllent read. Palpable dread and uncertainty, so characteristic of war and troubled childhood. Dexterous weaving of fantasy and reality , to the point where it is impossible to find a seam that facilitates ripping one from the other. All in all a fine addition to the magical realism trend that emerged from Latin America.
An interesting thing I found when I read the screenplay was, the mise’-en-scene is with respect to the camera and there are a lot of mentions of camera movements, something not recommended when the screenplay is written independently. Del Toro is also slated to direct “The Hobbit” and I’m sure it’ll be an incredible addition to the Tolkien universe.
Regarding your KK verse, I’m drawing a blank, but for some reason your comment reminded me of this- Holmes to Watson in the Hound of the Baskervilles: “Really, Watson, you excel yourself. I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.” I doubt there was a better back-handed compliment written
.
BTW I remember buying a bunch of books from City lights book store in San Francisco and getting the store insignia stamped on them, just coz someone told me Kerouac used to write there. Plus the book store published Ginsberg’s Howl, if I remember correctly (I am however guilty of never getting around to reading too much beat poetry).
Sagarika: Guilty as charged.
Thanks brangan, for this slice-of-the-movie style review…captures the complex emotional undercurrents of the movie nicely.
Having seen and appreciated a number of Chinese movies over the years, I’m left wondering - where are the small, modest films? The sweeping, lush epics like “The Hero”, “The Last Concubine”,etc. are fun but surely these aren’t the only types of films produced in China?
Shalini: I’m sure the small films are there - except that the brand names (Yimou, Kaige) aren’t making them any more, so they probably don’t break out into Western markets.
Deepauk M: I doubt if I can recall being paid a compliment more soulful, EVER — but then that could very well be because I just got goosebumps on my brain and the synapses are simply not firing.
OK, just kidding. It feels like I’ve been offered on a platter this dream contract to blab away at brangan’s blog, like forever (with zero qualms). Sweet deal. Thank you. (The President of the GRCA sure has pull.) 
And City lights book store? Were you visiting the West Coast or do you live here? The next thing I know, you’ll be telling me that you too live in the same zip code as Google (so much for my thinking that the only 6-letter G-word in my vicinity is a big building with a ton of zeros in its name!). If that’s the case, I might be tempted to buy you a cup of coffee but only if you promise to chip in with the conversation. (Alerting you in advance lest you come looking for the chatterbox from the blog and wind up with a stranger who’s perfectly content staring at the steam arising from your styrofoam cup.)
Pradeep: What can I say? I’ll take whatever (back-handed or otherwise) compliments I can lay my hands on.
Deepauk M; Oh, and forgot to thank you for chiming in about Pan’s Labyrinth. (As I say to Pradeep on Ramsu’s blog) I thought that was such beautiful articulation of the (yes, almost intextricable) interweaving of the two elements in the movie, which is EXACTLY what excited me — except I couldn’t manage to put a finger on it quite the way you did. (I guess I got too busy being Ofelia — it was me walking down the labyrinth with the faun. Yes, I tend to get that involved with the movies sometimes, but hey, don’t we all?).
Labyrinth. I love that word. (It’s been doing the rounds in my head since Pradeep’s recent reference to it.) It has such visceral resonances. Seems to speak of journeys past, present. Unknowns. Frightening. Fantastic. Even Euphoric. It’s a metaphor for many things and — if brangan doesn’t lunge for my jugular for referring to it yet again — among them my exalted state of mind from making the at-once-lofty-at-once-lyrical connections in his Guru music review. (I remember reading it for the first time last year and thinking, this is so rich, so beautiful, I haven’t read anything like this in a long time. And all this with not thinking much about the songs-in-question, in the first place. The only time I ever heard the songs was when I saw the movie last year and they didn’t really make much of an impression, but still…And that’s why I love the fact that a skilled someone can oh-so-easily navigate the labrynthine byways of another’s mind to re-create their own experiences, successfully supplanting what was originally in there).
And last night, while happening to flip thru “extras” in the Beowulf DVD, I caught some captivating (to the extent that watching something as painstaking as painting of dots on an actor’s face can be captivating) studio sequences during the making of the movie. But what really grabbed me was when one of the technicians shows us into a studio room and says, “this is the labyrinth. This is where we assemble…” Made my day!
An oh, that back-handed compliment had me thinking…hey, why settle for being a conductor of light when one could be a conductor of lightning? Ah, the very thought of feeding magic right off the Creator’s fingers…gooseflesh galore! Yes, one does get greedy…Compliments tend to do that to you.
Sagarika: I used to be in the general area in NorCal, but I have since moved to that mecca of sometimes mediocre, sometimes magnificent movies-Los Angeles. And what is with BRangan and yourself anointing me president of the GRCA? First rule of GRCA - You dont talk about GRCA.
. And we really should stop hijacking Rangan’s blog.