**SPOILERS**
Set in 1920's China, RTRL begins w/a close-up of 19 yr old former student Songlian (Gong Li) as she tells her mother of her intention to marry a rich man. Songlian has had to quit college, as her father has died and the family can no longer afford tuition. Her mother warns her that to marry into wealth is to become a concubine, to which Songlian replies bitterly, cynically, "Is that not our fate?" Li has kept her face impassive during this scene, then just before it closes, a single tear slowly emerges from each eye, dropping one after the other. It's a beautiful piece of extraordinarily controlled acting.
This scene sets much of the style of the rest of the film, as well as introducing the predominant theme of women's subservient, almost invisible role in that society. The mother is never seen, the camera stays static on Songlian, just as she is at the center of rest of the movie. Li is in almost every scene, everything happens from Songlian's pov, and in those few sequences in which she is not on screen the action is influenced by her character and they almost might be occurring just as she would imagine them.
The opening also sets the emotional tone of the movie. RTRL reminded me somewhat of Scorcese's "The Age of Innocence" in that both are about deeply repressed, "mini-societies" built on social classes. The characters rarely express themselves directly or honestly, everything is below the surface, and tensions run deep. Periodically emotions and conflicts boil over to the surface and are quickly repressed again, w/o resolution. In this way the tension builds and builds w/o any substantive release.
I won't go into the plot much, it's fairly simple: Songlian lives in a bizarre world, the fourth mistress, the newest and youngest, to the master of the household she joins. There are 3 other mistresses, each progressively older, each receiving less and less attention from the master as they age. The plot is essentially about how the mistresses vie for their master's attention while they attempt to out-manipulate each other for that precious recognition.
RTRL has complex themes, but I think the film is mainly about the emptiness and pointlessness of these women's lives in a society that sees them as having no worth, and how they destroy themselves and each other because of their insecurities and lack of self-respect, in an attempt to achieve (what they regard as) some kind of self-worth. At one point Songlian refers to them all as "living ghosts". The women scheme and play petty games to one-up one another, they humiliate and degrade themselves and each other, all in an effort to be the Queen of their little world, a world no one cares anything about except themselves. The master couldn't care less, he laments that the women can't get along but he plays them one against the other and they all go along w/it, even though they know they're being manipulated and degraded.
The women do not see themselves as having any significance on their own, it is only when the master "lights the lantern" in their house, when he favors them as sexual partners, that they become in any way of value in their own eyes and in the eyes of each other and the rest of the household. The master has an ongoing affair w/the servant Yan'er, who had hoped to become the 4th mistress. When Songlian barges into Yan'er's room she finds it full of red lanterns, a travesty that breaks the "tradition" of the household. Yan'er imagines herself a mistress, and this gives her self-worth, but of course it's false, just a fantasy. Yet her fantasy is just as real and meaningful as the actual mistresses w/the actual red lanterns - which is to say it has no real meaning at all.
In the microcosm that is the society of RTRL women are barely acknowledged as human beings, they are sex toys and baby vessels. The mistress that has a son gains stature, while the one who has a "worthless girl" is ashamed and humiliated by it. At the end of the film, in a scene of chilling beauty set against the falling snow on the rooftops of the estate, the 3rd mistress is taken away and murdered. Nothing comes of it, no one seems to really notice or acknowledges it even happened. It's as if they had disposed of some garbage. Except to Songlian. In an act of rebellious despair, Songlian lights the lanterns in the house of the 3rd mistress and plays a record of her singing opera. It is as if to say: "She was here. She was a person. She had worth." In a final, great irony, the rest of the household thinks it is the ghost of the 3rd mistress singing and lighting the lanterns. Such are the lives of women in the world of RTRL: Ghosts in death as they are ghosts in life.
In the end Songlian sinks into desperation and depression so deep that she is incapacitated, regarded as "mad" by the rest of the household. In the final shot she wanders aimlessly among the red lanterns around her courtyard, a trapped and helpless spirit in a world where she feels she might as well not even exist.
Harold
Set in 1920's China, RTRL begins w/a close-up of 19 yr old former student Songlian (Gong Li) as she tells her mother of her intention to marry a rich man. Songlian has had to quit college, as her father has died and the family can no longer afford tuition. Her mother warns her that to marry into wealth is to become a concubine, to which Songlian replies bitterly, cynically, "Is that not our fate?" Li has kept her face impassive during this scene, then just before it closes, a single tear slowly emerges from each eye, dropping one after the other. It's a beautiful piece of extraordinarily controlled acting.
This scene sets much of the style of the rest of the film, as well as introducing the predominant theme of women's subservient, almost invisible role in that society. The mother is never seen, the camera stays static on Songlian, just as she is at the center of rest of the movie. Li is in almost every scene, everything happens from Songlian's pov, and in those few sequences in which she is not on screen the action is influenced by her character and they almost might be occurring just as she would imagine them.
The opening also sets the emotional tone of the movie. RTRL reminded me somewhat of Scorcese's "The Age of Innocence" in that both are about deeply repressed, "mini-societies" built on social classes. The characters rarely express themselves directly or honestly, everything is below the surface, and tensions run deep. Periodically emotions and conflicts boil over to the surface and are quickly repressed again, w/o resolution. In this way the tension builds and builds w/o any substantive release.
I won't go into the plot much, it's fairly simple: Songlian lives in a bizarre world, the fourth mistress, the newest and youngest, to the master of the household she joins. There are 3 other mistresses, each progressively older, each receiving less and less attention from the master as they age. The plot is essentially about how the mistresses vie for their master's attention while they attempt to out-manipulate each other for that precious recognition.
RTRL has complex themes, but I think the film is mainly about the emptiness and pointlessness of these women's lives in a society that sees them as having no worth, and how they destroy themselves and each other because of their insecurities and lack of self-respect, in an attempt to achieve (what they regard as) some kind of self-worth. At one point Songlian refers to them all as "living ghosts". The women scheme and play petty games to one-up one another, they humiliate and degrade themselves and each other, all in an effort to be the Queen of their little world, a world no one cares anything about except themselves. The master couldn't care less, he laments that the women can't get along but he plays them one against the other and they all go along w/it, even though they know they're being manipulated and degraded.
The women do not see themselves as having any significance on their own, it is only when the master "lights the lantern" in their house, when he favors them as sexual partners, that they become in any way of value in their own eyes and in the eyes of each other and the rest of the household. The master has an ongoing affair w/the servant Yan'er, who had hoped to become the 4th mistress. When Songlian barges into Yan'er's room she finds it full of red lanterns, a travesty that breaks the "tradition" of the household. Yan'er imagines herself a mistress, and this gives her self-worth, but of course it's false, just a fantasy. Yet her fantasy is just as real and meaningful as the actual mistresses w/the actual red lanterns - which is to say it has no real meaning at all.
In the microcosm that is the society of RTRL women are barely acknowledged as human beings, they are sex toys and baby vessels. The mistress that has a son gains stature, while the one who has a "worthless girl" is ashamed and humiliated by it. At the end of the film, in a scene of chilling beauty set against the falling snow on the rooftops of the estate, the 3rd mistress is taken away and murdered. Nothing comes of it, no one seems to really notice or acknowledges it even happened. It's as if they had disposed of some garbage. Except to Songlian. In an act of rebellious despair, Songlian lights the lanterns in the house of the 3rd mistress and plays a record of her singing opera. It is as if to say: "She was here. She was a person. She had worth." In a final, great irony, the rest of the household thinks it is the ghost of the 3rd mistress singing and lighting the lanterns. Such are the lives of women in the world of RTRL: Ghosts in death as they are ghosts in life.
In the end Songlian sinks into desperation and depression so deep that she is incapacitated, regarded as "mad" by the rest of the household. In the final shot she wanders aimlessly among the red lanterns around her courtyard, a trapped and helpless spirit in a world where she feels she might as well not even exist.
Harold