Raise the Red Lantern - Analysis

Raise the Red Lantern is one of the movies that we watched at the beginning of the semester. It is a famous Chinese film that is directed by Zhang Yimou. This film was set in the 1920s, was shot in a very single environment and was shot at the Qiao Family Compound in Shanxi Province, a big house. It was constructed in the 18th century and is considered to be one of the finest examples of an estate for a powerful and wealthy family. The story is about a nineteen years old's girl, Songlian, was forced to marry a fifty years old's man that is rich and already has three wives, Chen Zuoqian, after her father's death. And after she arrived, it is a story of four 'sister' wives who struggle for petty power within a home controlled by a set of mysterious, traditional rules.

Let's talk about Songlian first, remember the first shot of the film is when Songlian talking with her stepmother, her eyes were staring at a place below the camera, every single muscle of her face looks motionless. I fell like she is done with her life from the look on her face. At first, when Songlian arrived at Chen Zuoqian's house, she was the one that he picked to spend the night with and was treated like royalty, receiving food massages and have the red lanterns light up. But then the other three wives start to make plans and try to get Chen Zuoqian to their place for a night. The difference between her and there other three wives is that she is educated, that might be a reason why Chen Zuoqian is favoring Songlian. She tried to keep him around the whole time, so she fakes a pregnancy. Not long later, Chen Zuoqian notices that she was lying, he orders Songlian's lanterns to be covered up. Things did not get any better. Songlian comes to the conclusion that she is happier being alone by herself.

The color red is through the film, it is the brightest color in the film. Red for me it means happiness and luck, and we also used a lot of red colored thing to decorate for weddings. Normally, marriages are supposed to be times of great happiness, in this film Songlian is not happy at all. She realized that her "luck" that allowed her to marry this rich man, ended up being the worst decision of her entire life. Also red is often used to represent passion and desire. But this film uses red to create an unconventional definition of its usual meanings. All of the red lanterns in the film stands for different meanings. For example, when the red lantern is light up in front of the wife's room which means that the master is going to spend the night with the one has the lanterns light up. This will make the other three wives jealous and some of them might just be used to it but the other will make plans and try their best to let master come. The other meaning of the lighting up the red lantern is happiness. When whoever's red lanterns got to light up, they look very happy and proud of themselves that the master picked them. When Songlian's red lantern get covered up with thick black canvas bags, she was pretty angry then she decides to make everything to be like how she feels and make every possible thing go worse than how is it. 

One thing I think worth to mentions is Chen Zuoqian, the master. In the entire film, the director did not show his face, any of his detail or focus at all, but often shown his slightly off camera with his voice being an asynchronous should. There were many long shots of him with Songlian in her room that left him too small to be seen. For me, his is a memorable character not showing him to the audience makes him seem powerful. Chen Zuoqian treats women like they are disposable. Like how he needs to decide who he wants to spend the night with every time, he is with one of them until he gets bored, and then onto the next woman. 

The other thing that is also worth mentioning is that the film used change seasons to emphasize the progression of Songlian's loneliness and despair. At the beginning of the film, Songlian becomes Chen Zuoqian's fourth wife in the summertime. She is not happy at the time; she becomes increasingly miserable as the film goes on. Winter is known to represent despair, isolation, and death. When the seasons change to winter in the film, Songlian becomes more detached from the other wives. At this time, Songlian's maid, Yan'er, die and the third wife dies too. After all, this happened, Songlian also dies, but not physically, it's mentally.


The scene I will analyze from Raise the Red Lantern is at the end of the movie, it starts from when Songlian went to third wife, Meishan's room and light up all of the red lanterns to then end of the film when Songlian is walking in from of her room, wandering around. As we can see the picture down below. the director used different camera angles to shoot this scene. there is medium shot, master shot, and an extreme long shot. At this part of the scene, the music in the background was Meishan's opera. She went light up the lantern in Meishan's room and come back to her own room light up the lanterns that were covered with thick black bags in her room. She was sitting down and staring straight at the camera with no facial emotion. Over here I feel like she is thinking about Meishan, she felt sorry about what she tells others about what happened between Dr. Gao and Meishan. 

The next scene is right after Songlian, it was the fifth wife coming into Chen's family. The director used a cloys-up shot at this part focus on the fifth wife. She looks like she felt lost and this makes me think of other two scenes one of them is in the very beginning of the film where it's also a close-up shot of Songlian, and the other one is a close-up of Songlian before the fifth wife. Their facial expression look kind of the same. one of them have their hair put up, the other one has it braided down. They both look not happy, they look like their age is similar, like around nineteen or twenty years old. I feel like the fifth wife is also forced by someone else to come to marry a fifty years old rich man. Her face looks like she does not know anything and thin that everything will be fine. But then you look at the close-up of Songlian after living with Chen's family, how different they look, Songlian feels like she has no hope. For me, these pictures seem similar because this scene is focused on both of them before walk into Chen's family. They look like they already know what is their life will be like. 

The last scene I want to talk about is at the end of the film when Songlian is walking around in front of her room, wandering around. Over here, the director used a long-shot to take Songlian and one of the camera angles is from up to down. I also notice that the red lanterns are all centered in the middle when the director takes this shot. Songlian looks like she had enough for her life, and she is partly dead but not physically dead. At this part, the music in the background was an opera, it's kind of go with how Songlian feels and what she keeps doing now, just walking in a circle over and over again. This kind of gives me anxieties, like Songlian has no more emotions and she has nothing left in her life and how small she feels now by the way the director shoe this scene and from when she just arrived at Chen's family.