Farewell My Concubine

The blog prompt for this viewing was actually for the primary film, "Xiu Xiu, The Sent Down Girl." However, I viewed "Farewell My Concubine," which was the first alternative to "Xiu Xiu."

This film primarily follows the lives of two Chinese men from their childhoods in a slave-like existence training to be actors, through adulthoods of stardom, and on to a traumatic late adulthood fraught with typical life problems combined with the effects of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Their given names during childhood are Douzi and Shitou, but when they become famous, they go by the names Dieyi and Xialolou. The film begins with Douzi’s mother, a whore, cutting off his extra finger so that he will be admitted into acting school. This is certainly the reason for his homosexual tendencies and possible misogynistic tendencies.

Since the blog prompt dealt with Tianamen Square, which wasn't dealt with in "Farewell," I'll discuss my reaction to the cultural revolution as seen through the eyes of Dieyi and Xiaolou.

Xiaolou cared more about the theater than about what was going on in his country. He was in love with Dieyi and the opera, and nothing else mattered to him at all. The only time we see any emotion towards the revolution, in fact, is when he informs on Dieyi and Juxian in order to save himself. Other than that, we rarely see any indication that he even notices the changes going on.

Dieyi does react more than Xiaolou, but not much. He mouths off to the officers, and he and Juxian exchange remarks about the situation. They don't show their unhappiness much until the scene where they are in their home and realize they can no longer drink from jade cups. They can't, in fact, do many things they used to be able to do or many things their ancestors had done for many years.

If I had could walk into that period in China right now, I probably would be quickly killed. I don't deal well with that sort of authority. However, if I had been raised through that, I suppose I might not question it as much. I doubt I would be able to sit back and handle it; if nothing else, I suppose I would try to leave the country.