FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Zhang Fengyi, Gong Li. Screenplay: Lilian Lee and Lu Wei. Director: Chen Kaige.
1993 has been quite a year for films with Chinese and Chinese-American themes. THE WEDDING BANQUET has received tremendous critical praise; M. BUTTERFLY brought a Tony Award-winning play to the screen; THE JOY LUCK CLUB has been playing to full houses and seems a lock for many major award nominations. Now comes Cannes Film Festival Palme D'Or co-winner FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE, and it becomes clear that everything else was just a warm-up. Director Chen Kaige has fashioned a drama mesmerizing from first frame to last, and does so without getting artsy or obscure. This is a remarkably accessible epic, and the best film of this year in any language.
FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE spans fifty years in the relationship between two Chinese opera stars. In 1925, the two meet when the shy Douzi is brought by his mother, a prostitute, to a training school for opera performers. He is immediatedly drawn to the cocky Shitou, and the friendship grows through the often cruel training. As adults, the two become the most renowned opera stars in Beijing, and adopt new stage names. Douzi becomes Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung), who plays the female roles; Shitou is Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi), who plays the male roles. The love of Dieyi for Xiaolou in their stage roles carries over into real life, and he becomes jealous when Xiaolou marries savvy prostitute Juxian (Gong Li). Over the years, their personal and professional relationship is tested by the great events of their times, including the Japanese invasion in 1937, the Communist takeover in 1949, and the Cultural revolution of the 1960s.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about FAREWELL is that in spite of its scope, it's really a very simple, old-fashioned love triangle which happens to be about a man and a woman both in love with the same man. The three principals are bold and dynamic characters, each of whom never does exactly what is expected. Dieyi is a fascinating character, a man whose latent homosexuality is twisted as a youth by training which requires him to sing, "I am by nature a girl, not a boy." Since it is only on stage in his role as Concubine Yu (in the opera from which the film takes its name) that he can express his sexuality and his love for Xiaolou openly, it is there that he chooses to live his entire life. When he makes a plea to students of the Cultural Revolution not to abandon the opera of the Old Society, it's a plea not just for the art form but for his only chance to by truly himself. Xiaolou is equally intriguing, a brash man who is more interested in the fame performing grants him than the purity of the form. He is oblivious to Dieyi's feelings, referring to him frequently as "my stage brother," yet even that level of friendship eludes Xiaolou. Rather, he treats Dieyi more or less as nothing but a co-worker, a man whom he likes and even needs for his career, but doesn't really respect. This convoluted relationship leads the two men to acts both of selfless heroism and complete betrayal. Then there is Juxian, perhaps the strongest character emotionally, self-assured to a fault in male-dominated China and capable in that confidence of surprising displays of forgiveness. Her conflict with Dieyi powers FAREWELL's most haunting moments.
Chen Kaige's direction demonstrates a mastery of composition and narrative structure rarely seen. The opening sequence, a reunion between Dieyi and Xiaolou which frames the flashbacks to come, is a triumph of lighting and texture. Chen crafts brilliant cuts, such as a cut from Xiaolou's announcement of his engagement to Juxian, and his request for Dieyi "to be my best man," to a full screen closeup of Dieyi, still in his concubine makeup and looking not like a "best man" but a rejected woman. Also well-handled is Dieyi's affair with a male arts patron whom he uses as a surrogate for Xiaolou, painted up as Xiaolou's Chu King character from the opera. Every shot is a minor revelation, raising Chen to the level of one of modern cinema's true masters.
No amount of hyperbole will get some filmgoers to see a 2 1/2 hour story with subtitles about marginalized characters. I can't think of a greater artistic tragedy. FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE is a thrilling love story, a political epic and an intimate character study rolled into one stunning package. If you've never seen a non-English language film before, find this one. It's just that good.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 operas: 10.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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