Opera on the whole is unknown to me. I'm not an opera fan. My Nonno (Italian grandfather) listens to it, I have seen The Three Tenors in it's entirety and was liked that scene in The Shawshank Redemption. That is my only experience. I don't know my Acte de ballet from my Zwischenspiel. Peking opera is completely alien to me ('P' is the fifteenth letter in the alphabet, a mere two letters from being equidistant between 'A' and 'Z').
Peking Opera is an acquired taste which I don't have. Apart from eye-widening surprise, I never know what emotion is being portrayed. If passion needs to be shown by a performer, two essential criteria need to be satisfied; the elongation of syllables and the varying of pitch mid-word from bass to screech. It’s disturbingly off-putting, albeit to my untrained ear.
Is something more to this film than (Peking) Opera? Yes.
I among many others liked Farewell My Concubine; a film nominally based on an opera. Farewell My Concubine is arguably the most enjoyed Chinese film ever as it is one of only a handful of Chinese films to exceed 8 on IMDb (achieving 8.1). It's complex but all-of-a-piece like anything worthwhile; so to try to pull it apart too much would be academic and cack-handed. I'll try not to do that.
Farewell My Concubine follows the lives of two opera actors in the early to mid-twentieth century. They live for opera; specifically for one play entitled ‘Farewell My Concubine’ based on the historic relationship between Xiang Yu, King of Western Chu and his favourite concubine, Consort Yu during the late Qin dynasty. Our two protagonists are slashed into shape as youths at an opera training school before becoming the incumbent opera idols venerated in Imperial China. Of course it's not a spoiler alert to say that Imperial China ended in 1911.
Our protagonists see control of their country oscillate between political factions; transferring from Imperialists to Nationalists before being taken by the Japanese and snatched back by the Communist party. The communists then establish themselves by purging the country of any traditional or conservative forces that could threaten the party and divide the masses into different factions whether it be upper and lower class, adored and obscured or even performer and audience, vis-à-vis The Cultural Revolution. . This film effectively shows the gritty political transition taking place in China during this period which involves or draws empathy from the viewer (which is the same thing).
I could say that the film is balanced between character development and wider context/story. But a more accurate conceptualization would be that the film succeeds because there is never a schism between character and situation; they are one. No need for scales. Watching the film is a process (not to damn with faint praise) where the audience becomes more invested as they become more informed. Many other history based films struggle achieving this unity and often chose one thematic vehicle, character or context, over another. Farewell My Concubine manages to give us believable plot AND deep characters. It descends neither into a forum of historical debate nor into a gaping statement on the human condition. The background situation never detracts from the authenticity of the characters and vice versa.
I knew only very few historical facts before watching this film. I knew that at the turn of the twentieth century, the Imperial Age of China was almost at an end. I knew there was then a tussle for power before the establishment of the Communist Party who remain in power today. What I appreciate from watching this film is that many of the people’s contemporary understanding of the political situation did not extend much further than my laymen understanding either. Change at the time was accepted first and understood later.
In this film, the audience realizes the political mood of China as the protagonists do (ironically at one point when the performers learn it from the reception of an audience). Through our protagonists, we see that the Communist party suddenly pervades every aspect of life and we never find out how. We are not meant to. The party suddenly became omnipresent making it faceless. We see no leader. The closest thing we see to that is a judge in a courtroom and a mob. When there is an interrogation, the interrogator is never seen. When the old of China is purged, it is done with flame and not fist. Our characters plunge into this new communist China and we gasp with them.
This film is an epic; a story portraying the generation of misfits left over from Imperial China. It is a layered film but it is not the multitude of themes that makes it worth seeing. The filmmaker and the actors give our characters an intimate transparency to see where they came from, what is happening around them and how they feel about it. What we see through them is as important as what we see in them. It's incidentally a beautiful film too. The colour scheme also subtly navigates the audience through the political transitions. Imperial China has a grey shadowy haze; the Japanese occupation a nightly blue hue and the times of affluence and prosperity, a vibrant red.
It has many splayed themes which are linked and could be untangled but the plot is straightforward and the confusing density of events is China in that period. This film makes this period of history accessible and interesting. Even if you're not an opera fan. I hope that wasn't too cack-handed.
Was this film a waste of time to watch? No, 8/10.
Peking Opera is an acquired taste which I don't have. Apart from eye-widening surprise, I never know what emotion is being portrayed. If passion needs to be shown by a performer, two essential criteria need to be satisfied; the elongation of syllables and the varying of pitch mid-word from bass to screech. It’s disturbingly off-putting, albeit to my untrained ear.
Is something more to this film than (Peking) Opera? Yes.
I among many others liked Farewell My Concubine; a film nominally based on an opera. Farewell My Concubine is arguably the most enjoyed Chinese film ever as it is one of only a handful of Chinese films to exceed 8 on IMDb (achieving 8.1). It's complex but all-of-a-piece like anything worthwhile; so to try to pull it apart too much would be academic and cack-handed. I'll try not to do that.
Farewell My Concubine follows the lives of two opera actors in the early to mid-twentieth century. They live for opera; specifically for one play entitled ‘Farewell My Concubine’ based on the historic relationship between Xiang Yu, King of Western Chu and his favourite concubine, Consort Yu during the late Qin dynasty. Our two protagonists are slashed into shape as youths at an opera training school before becoming the incumbent opera idols venerated in Imperial China. Of course it's not a spoiler alert to say that Imperial China ended in 1911.
Our protagonists see control of their country oscillate between political factions; transferring from Imperialists to Nationalists before being taken by the Japanese and snatched back by the Communist party. The communists then establish themselves by purging the country of any traditional or conservative forces that could threaten the party and divide the masses into different factions whether it be upper and lower class, adored and obscured or even performer and audience, vis-à-vis The Cultural Revolution. . This film effectively shows the gritty political transition taking place in China during this period which involves or draws empathy from the viewer (which is the same thing).
I could say that the film is balanced between character development and wider context/story. But a more accurate conceptualization would be that the film succeeds because there is never a schism between character and situation; they are one. No need for scales. Watching the film is a process (not to damn with faint praise) where the audience becomes more invested as they become more informed. Many other history based films struggle achieving this unity and often chose one thematic vehicle, character or context, over another. Farewell My Concubine manages to give us believable plot AND deep characters. It descends neither into a forum of historical debate nor into a gaping statement on the human condition. The background situation never detracts from the authenticity of the characters and vice versa.
I knew only very few historical facts before watching this film. I knew that at the turn of the twentieth century, the Imperial Age of China was almost at an end. I knew there was then a tussle for power before the establishment of the Communist Party who remain in power today. What I appreciate from watching this film is that many of the people’s contemporary understanding of the political situation did not extend much further than my laymen understanding either. Change at the time was accepted first and understood later.
In this film, the audience realizes the political mood of China as the protagonists do (ironically at one point when the performers learn it from the reception of an audience). Through our protagonists, we see that the Communist party suddenly pervades every aspect of life and we never find out how. We are not meant to. The party suddenly became omnipresent making it faceless. We see no leader. The closest thing we see to that is a judge in a courtroom and a mob. When there is an interrogation, the interrogator is never seen. When the old of China is purged, it is done with flame and not fist. Our characters plunge into this new communist China and we gasp with them.
This film is an epic; a story portraying the generation of misfits left over from Imperial China. It is a layered film but it is not the multitude of themes that makes it worth seeing. The filmmaker and the actors give our characters an intimate transparency to see where they came from, what is happening around them and how they feel about it. What we see through them is as important as what we see in them. It's incidentally a beautiful film too. The colour scheme also subtly navigates the audience through the political transitions. Imperial China has a grey shadowy haze; the Japanese occupation a nightly blue hue and the times of affluence and prosperity, a vibrant red.
It has many splayed themes which are linked and could be untangled but the plot is straightforward and the confusing density of events is China in that period. This film makes this period of history accessible and interesting. Even if you're not an opera fan. I hope that wasn't too cack-handed.
Was this film a waste of time to watch? No, 8/10.