FAREWELL, MY CONCUBINE

It’s very difficult to say simply what Farewell, My Concubine is about—even after seeing it four times.

It is certainly about Chinese history from the 1920s to the 1970s, with echoes from much earlier. It is about Peking Opera, recounting the lives of two celebrated actors. It is about fate and “karmic retribution.” It is about homosexual love, though perhaps less about this than some viewers suppose. Its title refers to the semi-legendary King of Chu, who, surrounded by foes, found only his horse and his concubine still faithful to him.

When I first saw the film in Taipei a few years ago with an American friend, I thought it was about the ruthlessness of artists, an idea that surprised him. “Are artists ruthless?” he asked.

Looking at it again months later, it seemed more a story of loyalty and betrayal—and various kinds of love.

The principal male characters, Duan Xiaolou and Cheng Dieyi, grow up together in a brutal Beijing acting school, later winning fame for their portrayal of the King of Chu and his concubine. Dieyi “becomes” Concubine Yu, living the role on and off stage and fighting fiercely for Xiaolou’s affections. His chief rival is Juxian, a prostitute whom Xiaolou marries on a whim.

Around these three spin the world of Peking Opera and the tumult of Chinese history, from the warlord era of the 1920s through World War II to Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution. The film abounds in fascinating minor characters: the acting school manager who beats his charges savagely when they fluff their lines; the Manchu aesthete who offers his patronage and perhaps more to Dieyi; even Chiang Kai-shek, who appears in a silhouette eerily like that of the real Chinese leader.

Xiaolou is the film’s Everyman—a merely talented artist, who strives to live a human life outside the theater. Weak and overwhelmed by events, he eventually betrays those dearest to him.

Dieyi’s obsession with the theater and the role of Concubine Yu drives him to artistic greatness, but wreaks havoc in the lives of those around him. His only real loyalties are to Xiaolou and to his art. At the film’s most intense moment, amid the human wreckage of the Cultural Revolution, he can exclaim only, “How will Peking Opera survive this!”

The innocent victim in this trio is the former prostitute Juxian, whose loyalty to Xiaolou is both absolute and doomed.

The film’s subtheme of “karmic retribution” is set early when Dieyi’s mother brings him to the acting school and cuts off an extra finger on one hand so that the troupe’s manager will accept him. Later, Dieyi also challenges fate by adopting a baby who has been left to die of exposure. As an adult, the baby becomes the agent of fate in undoing Dieyi and the other characters.

But this may make the film seem more straightforward than it is. It is a film of ambiguities, not the least of them sexual. The makers did not portray Dieyi as any sort of conventional gay figure. It is unclear to the end exactly what his sexual orientation is—or rather how much of it belongs to him and how much to his portrayal of Concubine Yu. As one character remarks, “Has he not blurred the distinction between theater and life?”

The triumph of this film, which somehow got out of mainland China despites its critical look at Communism, is in such ambiguities. There are no heroes or villains—or rather the main characters are both. One sympathizes with Xiaolou at his weakest moments and with Dieyi at his most obsessed. Farewell, My Concubine is a reminder that life is far more complex than any rules people may try to bind it with.