Oppressive Reality

Raise the Red Lantern is not your typical movie. It somehow goes with a slow pace movie about sexual enslavement. This film is directed by Zhang Yimou and cinematography by Lun Yang and Zhao Fei. Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for an academy award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Raise the Red Lantern recounts an intriguing and sad story of a nineteen-year-old lady, Songlian (Gong Li), whose life is bound to be demolished in a male-ruled society. This can be an awakening of some sort to any woman. This movie shows how a man can be powerful and how a man can easily get what he wants. This film is such a stunner for the individuals, particularly ladies, that we ought not be underestimated. Women are not just a follower and slave for a man, just for their own joy. This film tackle about female abuse, yet in addition, degenerate social hierarches (WATCH THE FULL MOVIE TO KNOW WHY)

The film shows a lot of symbolism and full of metaphor that communicates a specific state of mind. The red lantern is a symbol of joy and good fortune to the Chinese people, but in this film, it is not to represent hope, but to represent the power of those who are in a higher position.

About the ending, I was not really satisfied. It is somehow an open-ended film. At first, I thought Young Master and Songlian will have an affair that will make the master mad and punished Songlian. But I was disappointed when it doesn’t happen. The last scene drops my jaw, leaving the question “huh?”. So, I tried to watch it again for the second time and it now make sense. I think Songlian shows a symbolism on what will happen if you will let a man controls you. The film leaves me that the only way for her to be free was to become insane, therefore oblivious to the reality of her surroundings in an oppressive reality where you cannot do anything to change it, and you are cursed with a sensitive soul and intelligence, the only way to be free is to go mad or die.

Are you now interested in the movie? Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BVKEaXhWak

Rating: 9/10

ABANTE BABAE.