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The anecdote is recalled at length to hinge on Stevenson's "bottled poetry," wine from trampled crop to Molotov cocktail. The peasant maiden (Gong Li) is betrothed to a leprous old merchant in exchange for a mule, en route she's jostled inside her palanquin as per tradition, through the curtain she contemplates the burly back of one of the bearers (Jiang Wen). "Young woman in the sedan, don't just peep—talk to us!" Kurosawa's Rashomon holds stylistic sway as she's deflowered by the fellow in a sorghum field, her smiling visage is haloed by blasting sunlight while he serenades her cheekily from behind the rows. The young widow runs the winery as a booming collective, her lover is revealed as something of a tippling oaf, Edna Ferber in 1920s China. The finished product is celebrated with a raucous toast ("If you drink our wine, you won't kowtow to the emperor"), then the Japanese arrive. Zhang Yimou's directorial debut and very much a former cameraman's work, the photographic element aims for a sustained immersive sweep. The opening mixes satin and sweat against barren landscapes, diffuse lighting in interiors contrasts with nocturnal blues and amber smoke around distillery cauldrons. The red of intoxication above all, fabrics to spirits to viscera, the color of the virgin flustered and inflamed among veils and of the serf maddened by the bloodshed of conquerors. Spiteful urine turns out to be the secret vino ingredient in a joke from Dovzhenko's Earth, slow-motion during the vengeful skirmish adduces a note from Peckinpah's Cross of Iron. The upshot is an eclipse over a blushing screen, a song that passes from call to arms to folkloric elegy as Zhang continues to follow the muse. "Press on bravely, beloved..." Cinematography by Gu Changwei. With Ji Chunhua, Teng Rujun, and Chunhua Zhai.
--- Fernando F. Croce |