With sumptuous colors and a settled, contemplative aesthetic of long shots and static shots interspersed with some notable close-ups, Raise the Red Lantern has the flair and attentiveness of a great film. But it’s not as successful as if it were evaluated by its visual pleasures alone—missing is the subtle development of character and a resolution that makes sense of the closed-world oppression of this Chinese estate, where the main character, Songlian, has to live and die as a concubine of a shadowy but omnipresent patriarchal figure.
The ending confirms for me that the director, Yimou Zhang, is unwilling to deal with the implications of a character whose traits of goodness and virtue the story tarnishes, revealing true colors that are vicious and cruel, even if she becomes at last penitent, then traumatized into a state of so-called madness. Her madness, the effects of this closed world taking its toll, is to me a cop-out, a non-resolution that fails to address the real ambiguity of the character’s goodness.
A conclusion that ascribes to the oppressiveness of its setting, the laws of its world, the downfall of the character is not a story but an allegory, which can make great viewing all the same but here makes something that comes up short. The setting and its sumptuous visuals don’t make up for the want of complex character, and even as an allegory, Raise the Red Lantern seems tentative and unmoving. But as a glimpse of period setting and a historical recounting of what most certainly happened—even though not necessarily in this way—and bolstered by its visual pleasures, Raise the Red Lantern is worth as much as one viewing…or more if you enjoy the somber glowing of red in winter.
