"How time has passed" - repost
游園驚夢 Youyuan Jingmeng [Peony Pavilion] dir. 楊凡 Yonfan, starring 王祖賢 Joey Wong & 宮澤理惠 Miyazawa Rie, 2001
[Just cleaning house, don't mind me]
For the sake of simplicity, I will be referring to 游園驚夢 as Peony Pavilion and 牡丹亭 as Mudan Ting
Nothing like a little kunqu with your angst.
I'll cop to being a closet Chinese opera fan; I really like how stylized it is, and I think the costumes and makeup are really cool. Sometimes I really like the songs, and sometimes I don't - Peony Pavilion does a pretty good job of presenting it in snippets that aren't overwhelming (and it helps that the songs selected are very pretty and pretty low on the caterwauling scale).
While the movie in & of itself fell pretty flat for me in the end at first (not until repeated viewings did I find myself totally enthralled by it, but the music has taken on a life of its own for me - which has a big part to play, I think), I think some of the things presented in Peony Pavilion dovetail pretty neatly with discussions of women's relationships developed over art and literature, specifically 牡丹亭 Mudan Ting ("The Peony Pavilion"), the Ming play written by 湯顯祖 Tang Xianzu.
But for the moment, let's take a flying tour of Yongfan's Peony Pavilion - the opera does figure heavily (several of the best scenes of the movie involve operatic scenes from Mudan Ting), but the main focus is the love between two women.
Well, sort of. From what I've read, a lot of people enjoyed the superb production values of the film (my copy is pretty poor quality & it's still beautiful), but compared it to a crappy version of 霸王別姬 Farewell My Concubine.
We have 榮蘭 Rong Lan, played by Joey Wong, a new woman who would do Ah Ying of New Women proud. A teacher, daughter of a formerly rich family, she says her parents left her with little but "a modern mind." On the other hand, we have 翠花 Cuihua ('Jade' in the subtitles), played by Miyazawa Rie, who is an opera singer-turned-fifth wife in a very rich household (she's married to Lan's cousin).
Lan likes to play at crossdressing, and the two met while Jade was still singing at "The Moonlit Chamber".
They bond over songs taken from Mudan Ting; Lan is enchanted, and though Jade marries off into a rich household, they maintain a very close friendship - which is where we meet them.
The household is decadent and lavish, languid and dreamy - and dying out. Based on Jade's clothes, I think we can safely place the movie in the early 1930s (interestingly, Lan wears qipaos that are much, much more like the 'first wave' - ie, men's scholar robes), and old patterns of life are dying out. The family is selling off its treasures, everyone's too wrapped up in mahjong or opium smoking to get with the times and so on.
Etc. etc. etc.
What follows is an hour and a half of beautiful & dreamy cinematography (there's a reason the household scenes are wonderful, and it's because the languid pace and dream-like state the family seems to be suspended in is mirrored in the cinematography and pacing of the whole movie) and a lot of undeveloped angst. Usually I wouldn't complain about the angst being undeveloped, but you know, it was the point of the damn film. Still, the production is spectacular, from the costuming to the backdrops. And the opera is good too.
It's not enough to save the plot, which has these buildups and abrupt switches - after a good 45 minutes of buildup with Jade's situation, where you're expecting some New Women-esque "I just can't take it anymore!" freak out, Jade and her daughter are sent packing from the rich household for an unspecified reason; Lan says of course they can come live with her. Well, that's enough of Jade's story and sad life, on to Lan!
Lan is "in love" with Jade, though you have to wonder how much of it is actually infatuation - the other part seems like a deep and genuine friendship, a sort of soul mate connection. Still, she hides it from Jade when a handsome school official from Nanjing shows up (played by 吳彥祖 Daniel Wu) & she begins a relationship with him. They fall in love. Things are looking good for Lan!
Then Jade finds out, and Lan becomes conflicted. The school official breaks it off with her.
So it's just the two (three, if we count Jade's daughter) of them again - Jade has TB (is there a melodrama set in the fairly early 20th century or earlier that doesn't involve someone's imminent death via consumption?), they sit and reminisce about a lot of things, it's a beautiful friendship etc.
The whole thing just felt half-baked. And I don't mean in the sense of "That's preposterous!", I mean it really felt unfinished. The men of the story (the butler Jade sort of has a thing for, and it turns out he has a thing for her, though she only discovers this after he dies; Lan's Nanjing official) only serve to divert the focus away from the relationship between Jade and Lan, not deepen our understand of the bonds between them. Yes, I get that both women are jealous at alternate points of the other woman being more interested in a man than them - it still feels very shallow. The wishy-washy "We're going to leave a lot unsaid" tact taken through much of the film doesn't heighten the mood, make me intrigued, or lead my mind in interesting directions - it just feels, well, unfinished. The jealousy on Jade's part and the conflicted feelings of Lan while she's seeing the Nanjing official aren't particularly well-developed, and they really just make both women look flakey. It's one of those films that had a lot of potential, but just winds up sort of middling in the plot department. After multiple viewings and occasional gushing, I STILL think the movie doesn't live up to its potential, but it's been sentimentally shelved as one of my modern-day favorites nonetheless.
(The costuming was great; I want this jacket Jade is wearing when she meets Lan for the first time copied. 我很喜歡)
So it's worth a look-see for the cinematography, some particularly well-acted scenes (let me say that the acting itself isn't half-baked in the least, but they weren't working with much - I think with the cast, it would have been possible to delve much deeper than the superficial look at the love between two women Peony Pavilion winds up with), as well as the beautiful way the opera is presented, especially Mudan Ting & the bond it strengthens between these two very different women. I was really interested in it from that perspective, and the fact that it's tangentially related to many of the studies of elite women in 17th and 18th century Jiangnan I've read - Mudan Ting figures prominently in the lives & scholarship of elite women of the Ming and Qing periods.
I did really like the bond formed between the two women of Peony Pavilion through Mudan Ting - kunqu dramas were typically presented in the home or intimate spaces & this idea was present through much of the movie. Indeed, the very first scene has this really trippy, dream-like quality to it, with actors mingling with family members. Jade herself is asked to perform for the family on (one would assume) multiple occasions, though only one is shown in the movie itself.
The line between the tragic heroine of Mudan Ting who pines for a lover she has only seen in a dream and Jade, who longs for a lover who will care for & understand her (and then she receives the butler's diary after his death - is she being pined for by someone from beyond the grave?) blurs when she sings her songs from Mudan Ting. After beginning her relationship with the Nanjing official, Lan spends time in a half-dreamy state, thinking of his touch.
Still, the "happiest moments of [their] lives," as described by Lan, takes place on Jade's birthday. Jade's young daughter & Lan surprise her with one of those intimate performances of a scene (or song, in this case) from Mudan Ting. In an almost timeless courtyard of a rich family's complex (certainly dreamy enough by most standards), amidst falling blossoms, Liu Mengmei does appear. The lines between dreams and reality are blurred.
Is Lan the scholar who will save Jade's tragic, talented, beautiful heroine? Is Jade the shadowy dream-figure who will eventually come to life for Lan? Peony Pavilion doesn't tell us how the relationship ends, or when; nor does the film go deep enough into the complex relationship between the two women (this is the most disappointing part of the movie for me, because the potential is so great). Still, I appreciated this modern depiction of Mudan Ting as something fairly pivotal in the relationship of two women, and the scenes of the line blurring between fiction and reality, dreams and real life, friendship and something more were really brilliant, if sort of fleeting; the movie is worth watching for those alone.
Literary Chinese no longer makes my blood run cold, and I pretty much know the songs from this movie by heart (handy, that).
[Just cleaning house, don't mind me]
For the sake of simplicity, I will be referring to 游園驚夢 as Peony Pavilion and 牡丹亭 as Mudan Ting
Nothing like a little kunqu with your angst.
I'll cop to being a closet Chinese opera fan; I really like how stylized it is, and I think the costumes and makeup are really cool. Sometimes I really like the songs, and sometimes I don't - Peony Pavilion does a pretty good job of presenting it in snippets that aren't overwhelming (and it helps that the songs selected are very pretty and pretty low on the caterwauling scale).
While the movie in & of itself fell pretty flat for me in the end at first (not until repeated viewings did I find myself totally enthralled by it, but the music has taken on a life of its own for me - which has a big part to play, I think), I think some of the things presented in Peony Pavilion dovetail pretty neatly with discussions of women's relationships developed over art and literature, specifically 牡丹亭 Mudan Ting ("The Peony Pavilion"), the Ming play written by 湯顯祖 Tang Xianzu.
But for the moment, let's take a flying tour of Yongfan's Peony Pavilion - the opera does figure heavily (several of the best scenes of the movie involve operatic scenes from Mudan Ting), but the main focus is the love between two women.
Well, sort of. From what I've read, a lot of people enjoyed the superb production values of the film (my copy is pretty poor quality & it's still beautiful), but compared it to a crappy version of 霸王別姬 Farewell My Concubine.
We have 榮蘭 Rong Lan, played by Joey Wong, a new woman who would do Ah Ying of New Women proud. A teacher, daughter of a formerly rich family, she says her parents left her with little but "a modern mind." On the other hand, we have 翠花 Cuihua ('Jade' in the subtitles), played by Miyazawa Rie, who is an opera singer-turned-fifth wife in a very rich household (she's married to Lan's cousin).
Lan likes to play at crossdressing, and the two met while Jade was still singing at "The Moonlit Chamber".
They bond over songs taken from Mudan Ting; Lan is enchanted, and though Jade marries off into a rich household, they maintain a very close friendship - which is where we meet them.
The household is decadent and lavish, languid and dreamy - and dying out. Based on Jade's clothes, I think we can safely place the movie in the early 1930s (interestingly, Lan wears qipaos that are much, much more like the 'first wave' - ie, men's scholar robes), and old patterns of life are dying out. The family is selling off its treasures, everyone's too wrapped up in mahjong or opium smoking to get with the times and so on.
Etc. etc. etc.
What follows is an hour and a half of beautiful & dreamy cinematography (there's a reason the household scenes are wonderful, and it's because the languid pace and dream-like state the family seems to be suspended in is mirrored in the cinematography and pacing of the whole movie) and a lot of undeveloped angst. Usually I wouldn't complain about the angst being undeveloped, but you know, it was the point of the damn film. Still, the production is spectacular, from the costuming to the backdrops. And the opera is good too.
It's not enough to save the plot, which has these buildups and abrupt switches - after a good 45 minutes of buildup with Jade's situation, where you're expecting some New Women-esque "I just can't take it anymore!" freak out, Jade and her daughter are sent packing from the rich household for an unspecified reason; Lan says of course they can come live with her. Well, that's enough of Jade's story and sad life, on to Lan!
Lan is "in love" with Jade, though you have to wonder how much of it is actually infatuation - the other part seems like a deep and genuine friendship, a sort of soul mate connection. Still, she hides it from Jade when a handsome school official from Nanjing shows up (played by 吳彥祖 Daniel Wu) & she begins a relationship with him. They fall in love. Things are looking good for Lan!
Then Jade finds out, and Lan becomes conflicted. The school official breaks it off with her.
So it's just the two (three, if we count Jade's daughter) of them again - Jade has TB (is there a melodrama set in the fairly early 20th century or earlier that doesn't involve someone's imminent death via consumption?), they sit and reminisce about a lot of things, it's a beautiful friendship etc.
The whole thing just felt half-baked. And I don't mean in the sense of "That's preposterous!", I mean it really felt unfinished. The men of the story (the butler Jade sort of has a thing for, and it turns out he has a thing for her, though she only discovers this after he dies; Lan's Nanjing official) only serve to divert the focus away from the relationship between Jade and Lan, not deepen our understand of the bonds between them. Yes, I get that both women are jealous at alternate points of the other woman being more interested in a man than them - it still feels very shallow. The wishy-washy "We're going to leave a lot unsaid" tact taken through much of the film doesn't heighten the mood, make me intrigued, or lead my mind in interesting directions - it just feels, well, unfinished. The jealousy on Jade's part and the conflicted feelings of Lan while she's seeing the Nanjing official aren't particularly well-developed, and they really just make both women look flakey. It's one of those films that had a lot of potential, but just winds up sort of middling in the plot department. After multiple viewings and occasional gushing, I STILL think the movie doesn't live up to its potential, but it's been sentimentally shelved as one of my modern-day favorites nonetheless.
(The costuming was great; I want this jacket Jade is wearing when she meets Lan for the first time copied. 我很喜歡)
So it's worth a look-see for the cinematography, some particularly well-acted scenes (let me say that the acting itself isn't half-baked in the least, but they weren't working with much - I think with the cast, it would have been possible to delve much deeper than the superficial look at the love between two women Peony Pavilion winds up with), as well as the beautiful way the opera is presented, especially Mudan Ting & the bond it strengthens between these two very different women. I was really interested in it from that perspective, and the fact that it's tangentially related to many of the studies of elite women in 17th and 18th century Jiangnan I've read - Mudan Ting figures prominently in the lives & scholarship of elite women of the Ming and Qing periods.
I did really like the bond formed between the two women of Peony Pavilion through Mudan Ting - kunqu dramas were typically presented in the home or intimate spaces & this idea was present through much of the movie. Indeed, the very first scene has this really trippy, dream-like quality to it, with actors mingling with family members. Jade herself is asked to perform for the family on (one would assume) multiple occasions, though only one is shown in the movie itself.
The line between the tragic heroine of Mudan Ting who pines for a lover she has only seen in a dream and Jade, who longs for a lover who will care for & understand her (and then she receives the butler's diary after his death - is she being pined for by someone from beyond the grave?) blurs when she sings her songs from Mudan Ting. After beginning her relationship with the Nanjing official, Lan spends time in a half-dreamy state, thinking of his touch.
Still, the "happiest moments of [their] lives," as described by Lan, takes place on Jade's birthday. Jade's young daughter & Lan surprise her with one of those intimate performances of a scene (or song, in this case) from Mudan Ting. In an almost timeless courtyard of a rich family's complex (certainly dreamy enough by most standards), amidst falling blossoms, Liu Mengmei does appear. The lines between dreams and reality are blurred.
Is Lan the scholar who will save Jade's tragic, talented, beautiful heroine? Is Jade the shadowy dream-figure who will eventually come to life for Lan? Peony Pavilion doesn't tell us how the relationship ends, or when; nor does the film go deep enough into the complex relationship between the two women (this is the most disappointing part of the movie for me, because the potential is so great). Still, I appreciated this modern depiction of Mudan Ting as something fairly pivotal in the relationship of two women, and the scenes of the line blurring between fiction and reality, dreams and real life, friendship and something more were really brilliant, if sort of fleeting; the movie is worth watching for those alone.
Literary Chinese no longer makes my blood run cold, and I pretty much know the songs from this movie by heart (handy, that).