Last Emperor

BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI's Last Emperor is a revelatory narrative on the bumpy road of China during the 20th century - from decadent empire to Japanese colony, then Communist state following the liberation and a bloody civil war. When USSR ceased to be the "evil other" of Western world with Gorbatchev's Perestroika and Glasnost, China have become a focal point of attention. This casts a shadow over the interpretation of this movie and others, I'll try to unveil it all.

Taking the point of view of the last, fallen Chinese emperor - Pu Yi - BERTOLUCCI unleashes a weary tale of grim modernization, the dissolute, superficial, quite amoral character of Pu Yi as a metaphor for the fallen veils of an arcane, social system going through a series of collapses and rebirths.

Surprisingly, there's a noticeable continuity in practices - the more things change, the more they remain the same. Some could say that this reveals an "Orientalist" (check out EDOUARD SAID's writtings) view over Chinese, as if they were immune in the end to modernization, ancient beliefs so solid they differ from "true modern" Western people as you and me. But let's check in detail the main character, it reveals sutble shades on this argument.

Pu Yi (perfect-to-note interpretations by Tijer Tsou - child and John Lone - adult), devoid of substance, is a wannabe-sovereign in a context of vanishing sovereignty. A free-rider for unambashed power. To fill his void in, he goes through the motions - riding a ruined empire under the guidance of an Scottish gentleman (Peter O'Toole), alligning to the Japanese to forge a puppet state (Manchukuo, in Manchuria) and then completing his "re-education" as a communist in Mao Tse-Tung's China.

Like a child imprisoned fom external "danger" within the walls of his imperial Forbidden City, Pu Yi plays with the lives of his women, servants, friends, allies - each and every of them he leaves behind soulessly. Many lives were taken, many crimes were committed during his passage on Earth - but he doesn't care. He truly incarnates sovereignty - as post-modern social scientists, state, sovereignty is a "pure form", devoid of any specific content, a ghostly "self" with an uncontrollable urge for massive power over "others". That's why he's satisfied all the time. Once the plot doesn't contain a single hint of reflection or, maybe, regret, Pu Yi becomes an archetypical modern character in the sense that, from the beginning to the end, he remains "identical to himself" as a perfect form, the dream of Modernity.

Emperor or gardener, he's a sketch. BERTOLUCCI unintentionally displayed much more modernity than he possibly predicted. Pu Yi is China incarnated, a struggle between change and persistance. A liberal view? Maybe.

Other noticeable features are the women. First and foremost, Wan Jung (Joan Chen) represents the seduction of modernity - she explicitly refuses her past and China's as a guidance for her lifestyle, even though she remains extraordinarily nationalist whereas Pu Yi forges and dillutes national identities every two years. Her tragic fate on the hands of the fallen emperor, whe she tries to keep continuity amidst change (he got pregnant from Pu Yi's driver, a Manchurian, to keep the dinasty during Japanese occupation), is the mirror image of modernization dillema itself.

"Eastern Jewel" (Maggie Han) is a Chinese that spies for the Japanese, she mirrors the opportunism of Pu Yi but quicky vanishes from sight (and history). Zu Ruigang performs the emperor's "second wife", an independent woman relentlessly caught in Pu Yi's nest of power and manipulation, but in the end freed (as an individual) from his pursuance as the bright hope of liberty amidst the chaotic earthquakes of revolution and war (didn't I mention this movie is quite liberal in tone?)

In the end, a brave liberal narrative of exotism (delightful passages of many Chinese environments, specially the stunning sequences at the magnificent Forbidden City) and seek for freedom and liberty against the resilience of old beliefs and practices. Modernization. BERTOLUCCI sues Pu Yi for being amoral, but he's absolved every scene as he incarnates modernity in its most alluring desire for relentless change, adaptation (and power). But in the end... China is China is China. China is unredeemably "old" China. Change is superficial.

I'd say: pay attention to the women, voiceless (a good metaphor for the Chinese themselves - do we have to believe in BERTOLUCCI's tragic - but resilient, that is a modern, Western view of things - China?) but "the" bearers of hidden significance here.