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Film Commentary

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation
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Film Commentary: Raise the Red Lantern and To Live

By saying that "what is past? What is history? To me, it is a stack of torn pieces of paper;

since it is so torn, I can use my own style to pick it up, patch it up, and fold it up to reconstruct a

world of my own," Su Tong meant that as an artist he free to be creative and reframe history in

own creative way based on his urge. According to Tong, history can be reconstructed and be

given a new look regardless of how it is perceived. Director Zhang Yimou does something

similar in his works Raise the Red Lantern and To Live because he fills his filmography with

reframed historic contextual stories that give a new critical look at Chinese society.

Yimou does not follow the historical precedent for the rituals he depicts in his film, and

this reflects how he reconstructs history into a new world of his own that portrays power

relations in Chinese society. As shown in Raise the Red Lantern, many scenes focus on family

and community social rituals (Patton, 1994). These are highly aestheticized rituals in the film

which have also become its iconic representation. Moreover, familiar elements to historic

Chinese rituals have been employed in Raise the Red Lantern's filmic ceremonies. For instance,

the color red that has been used as a celebratory color, bridal sedan chairs, dragon symbolism,

and the lighting of paper lanterns. However, these features that the reviewer is familiar with are

combined with the film's specific elements like cloaking lanterns in black bags and foot

massages. Besides, rituals portrayed in this film are mainly used in high social contexts to

illustrate specific social standing shifts within a particular village or family. However, certain

familiar elements are used in a manner that contravenes tradition; for instance, the dragon

symbol was only reserved for the Chinese emperor, and it was taboo for anyone else to use it.

Thus, this film's rituals are only but invented; they do not follow the historical precedent.
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According to Tong, history can be critically reframed through art and given a new look based on

the artist’s liking, and Yimou has reflected this.

In To Live, Yimou presents history unexpectedly that the progressive communists would

not want the world to believe; thus, he offers a different perspective of history from what is

known. He does not parch up history based on how people know it, but he patches it based on his

understanding. The progressive communists had broadly publicized notions that they wanted the

world to believe. Instead of Yimou portraying such notions in To Live, he chooses to challenge

them (Sameer, 1994). He represented the traditional Chinese way of life differently from what

was expected; instead of depicting cooperation that led to health and prosperity, he showed

conflicts, disappointment, and suffering. Thus, he critiques the social injustices of China’s

cultural revolution, or rather, the troublesome degree held by any political conformity sway over

an individual's mind. In this film, Zhang has demonstrated how China's politics scared

individuals that were treated as pawns in the progress of Mao, and the sentimentality of this film

shows that in the face of personal anguish, ideology is not comfort.

When watching To Live, the reviewer feels uneasy that the film is propaganda because the

characters resolve that they will endure and will not stand up against the state when it rolls their

lives over. Inner conflict exists here; there are a pull and a push between the pre-communist past

freedom and the future that is strict. One might think that the film conforms to the state’s

ideology, but the quiet form of dissent is suggested in the underlying metaphor. Besides, Yimou

rubbishes such interpretations on his films; he claimed that film is for society by nature, and he

does not care how his films are perceived. He posited that he does not make up anything

ideological in his films but fulfilled his passion and creative urge (Ye & Yimou, 1999). Yimou’s

sentiments reflect Tong's understanding of history as a stack of torn pieces of paper which he can
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reconstruct by employing his style to create his world, and as seen from the film, he critically

reconstructed history.

Tong understands history as not being reliably accurate; he wants people to look at

history with a critical eye because it may not provide a valid account of the time. History might

force us to receive it as it is, but art gives us the freedom to depict history in our understanding.

In a nutshell, Tong believes that we can reconstruct history based on our very own account. His

sentiments show that history cannot be lost, and we can reframe it based on what it provides and

what we experience.

These films show that Yimou shares Tong’s attitude on history. He feels that what

history provides does not give the actual image of what happened, or simply history might have

been biased and therefore, what it gives is unreliably true. In this regard to Raise the Red

Lantern and To Live, Yimou has provided another side of history that many did not know. What

he depicted in these two films is following his understanding. That is why he invented rituals he

depicted in Raise the Red Lantern because, according to the critics, the rituals in this film did not

follow historical precedent. On the other hand, he decides to move against the grain in To Live

since he depicts suffering, disappointment, and conflicts instead of expressing cooperation

resulting in China's prosperity.

In conclusion, Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern and To Live depict how he related to

history as an individual. The idea of historical consciousness depicted in these films has

excellent consciousness. The films have helped capture the historical idea and give ontological

meaning to personal history, which can further be employed to map the historical consciousness.
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References

Patton, S. (1994). China--Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong and translated by Michael S.

Duke. World Literature Today, 68(3), 634.

Sameer, S. Mapping “Historical Consciousness” in Films of 5th generational filmmakers namely

Zhang Yimou" s To Live (1994), and TianZhuangzhuang" s The Blue Kite (1993–1994),

and Chen Kaige" s Farewell My Concubine.

Ye, T., & Yimou, Z. (1999). From the fifth to the sixth generation: An interview with Zhang

Yimou. Film Quarterly, 53(2), 2-13.