Eros

Eros is a portmanteau film from three international auteurs: Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Antonioni. The term auteur applies to Wong ever so well. As the title suggests, the film is about love, lust, and whatever that comes in between. Oh, and as a warning to save your time, Wong's short film is the only one of the three worth watching. (I skimmed through the latter two.)

Wong's feature in the film is title The Hand starring Gong Li and Chang Chen. The story is about a young, working class man who has an unrelenting love for an older, sexually-matured social climber/gold digger/prostitute. At times, Chang Chen appears extremely naive knowing that Gong Li will never love Chang Chen back the same way. However, this is what makes the story so beautiful. When Gong Li becomes broke and has no money to pay for her growing tab at the tailor, Gong Li tells Chang Chen to sell some of her cheongsam. Chang Chen takes them but keeps them safely for her eventual return.

In addition to the heartfelt storyline, the cinematography is perfect. Many scenes are dimmed lit with one light source like Caravaggio's paintings. Close up shots show the beautiful laced details of cheongsam. I thought The Hand is darker, not only in the lighting but also in the mood, than most of Wong's films.

About the title--there are many segments within the film that makes its title appropriate. First of all, Chang Chen is a seamster who uses his hands to make clothes. In the beginning of the film, Chang Chen is just a young apprentice at a clothier delivering cheongsam to Gong Li's residence. During this visit, Gong Li erotically feels Chang Chen's crotch--a scene where the element of hand is beautifully featured. The penultimate scene intensely portrays the hand as an emotional, bewitching object.

Raise the Red Lantern

Gong Li was the reason why I watched Raise the Red Lantern. She caught my attention in Memoirs of a Geisha so I wanted to watch more of her films. Again, Gong Li powerfully portraits her character in RTRL as Song Lian a young woman who gets married to a wealthy, old man. Song Lian is the fourth mistress or concubine of this wealthy man who the audience never gets familiar with. The director, Zhang Yimou, chose not to shoot close-ups of the husband which I thought was an excellent way to narrate the distance of the marriage and the two characters.

RTRL is filled with drama: hate, deception, backstabbing, jealousy, and more. Throughout the movie, I found myself rooting for Song Lian in her battle against the other mistresses (and servant) who fight for the favoritism of the husband. Zhang Yimou brings the audience behind the doors and walls of a family that is ran by unyielding traditions passed on by the previous generation. At times the traditions and the need to follow the traditions are absurd which makes you realize that the argument and disharmony too are absurd. Why can't everyone just live happily together? Or maybe they bring down the person who is causing all the drama--the husband. At the end, you realize that all this is just a vicious cycle. Zhang Yimou beautifully films this cycle as an exciting and visually luscious game.

As one of the Zhang Yimou's earlier film, I thought RTRL shows the development of his colorful style. As exemplified in Hero, Zhang Yimou uses single colors to tell stories. Each chapter in Hero had a different sweeping color: red, green, blue, and white. So too is used in RTRL. Throughout the film, red is used against a gray, somber backdrop. The red really stood out and makes the film extraordinary memorable.

One other great thing about the film is the acting of Gong Li. By now, I have thought of her as an actress who is verye often typecasted. In Memoirs, Curse of the Golden Flower, and 2046, Gong Li has always played a powerful, independent woman with much power and anger boiling under her. In most of RTRL, Gong Li is the same powerful actress but we do get a glimpse of her weakness at the beginning and the end of the film. I thought this was refreshing to see and it adds much more to Gong Li as an actress.