RAISE THE RED LANTERN, DIR. ZHANG YIMOU (1991)

Qiao Family Courtyard, Shanxi Province, China

First released at Venice Film Festival in 1991, RAISE THE RED LANTERN tells a story about a female college student Songlian unwillingly marrying the landlord Chen as the fourth concubine during the Warlord era. After the marriage, Songlian experienced a lot of infighting with other concubines. In Chen’s rule, whenever he wanted to spend a night with someone, he let servants hang red lanterns over one’s room door. In that case, the red lantern symbolizes power in Chen’s family. In a series of chaotic events over the red lantern, the third concubine’s adultery with the family doctor is revealed due to Songlian’s drunken slip of the tongue. The third concubine died for her adultery. Songlian went mad because of the guilt for the third concubine’s death. In the wedding of the fifth concubine, the story ends. The film location, Qiao Family Courtyard, was built in 1756. 10-meters-tall high walls surround this ancient house with the architectural style of traditional northern dwellings, spectacular and formidable.
In the movie, Qiao Family Courtyard looks depressive and narrow. High walls and red lanterns are impressive. From the movie’s perspective, the field of vision is tiny. High walls always stand around the screen, blocking the view. However, in reality, Qiao Family has many empty spaces and a backyard with pools and rockery. In the choice of color, black tiles and grey walls are the primary backgrounds. In the post-production, the movie seemingly uses some technology to decrease the color saturation and make the whole scene unpleasant. The actual building has more kinds of color than it has in the movie. Its walls are not all grey, but some of it is green. Enough sunlight makes it looks more peaceful. The film did not give any overview of Qiao Family Courtyard. It only focuses on shooting part of Qiao Family Courtyard, making the structure of the whole building unclear to the audience.

The movie gives a sketch of the suffering of women from the feodal mating system and hierarchical family structure in the old era. These old rules brick out people’s freedom to seek their value, just like the surrounding high walls in Qiao Family Courtyard. The movie uses unpleasant colors to render the atmosphere of confinement. There are two scenes in the film that suggest the symbolic significance of high walls. One is when the second concubine acted in Chinese opera that used to be her occupation before she came to Chen’s family. The other scene is Songlian followed the sound of a flute to the top of the high wall and was touched by the music. These two scenes both happened above the wall. Chinese opera and the sound of flute represent their purchase towards their own life, which can not find inside the wall. Unfortunately, they cannot cross the barrier. The best thing they can do is stand on the wall and embrace life for a brief time. The building and its high wall appropriately show the despair and numbness of old-era women in RAISE THE RED LANTERN.

-LI XIANG, 3035773084

Notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raise_the_Red_Lantern

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B9%94%E5%AE%B6%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%A2/5844