metalluk's Full Review: Women From the Lake of Scented Souls
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
She'd been doted on by Farther and loved by Mother.
No matter how much they love her, she is miserable.
Everyone says that she is sad.
Who knows how dear she is to her parents?
To sing a song can hardly cure her sorrow in a dream.
To sing a song can hardly cure her sorrow in a dream. Song from The Women from the Lake of Scented Souls
Interest in Chinese films in America and Europe has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years, with the so-called Fifth Generation directors leading the way. One imagines that these directors didn't simply spring to life full grown like Topsy, and, in fact, the present film provides some tangible evidence that the preceding generation of Chinese directors, the Fourth Generation, had some real talent as well.
Historical Background: Though not well known outside of China, Xie Fei belongs to that Fourth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. As a teacher at the Beijing Film Academy, he contributed to the education of the Fifth Generation directors, who are generally more well-known to Western audiences. His pupils included Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, etc.), Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine, Temptress Moon, The Emperor and the Assassin, etc.), and Tian Zhuangzhuang (The Blue Kite). Xie Fei's American releases have included A Girl from Huan (1986), Black Snow (1990), The Women from the Lake of Scented Souls (1993), A Mongolian Tale (1995), and Song of Tibet (2000). The first, third, and fourth of those five films are in the Epinions database presently. The Women from the Lake of Scented Souls was formerly released in the U.S.A. as Woman Sesame Oil Maker, which is also in the Epinions database as a separate listing.
The Story: In a small village somewhere in rural China, Xiang Ersao (Gaowa Siqin), a woman in her mid-thirties or so, and her husband operate a successful business, making sesame oil. In reality, the success of the business is mostly due to the hard work and acumen of Xiang, as her husband is indolent when sober and a drunken lout when intoxicated. Xiang has hired good workers and produces sesame oil of the highest quality. The local water (from a lotus-covered lake) adds a special quality to her product that has gained the attention of Japanese investors. A female businesswoman, representing the investors, pays a visit to Xiang's small operation and is suitably impressed. Xiang tells her the legend of the lake: supposedly, two teen-age girls drowned themselves there in grief over lost loves. Their bodies were transformed into beautiful birds that soared skyward.
Xiang and her husband are already wealthy by the standards of their small village but are soon to become more so. Nevertheless, Xiang, despite her seemingly methodical and tireless approach to her life's work, is unhappy in more than one respect. She was sold when she was seven and had to assume her duties as wife at just thirteen years of age. Her husband, an older man, is an abusive and unappealing. She almost drowned herself in the lake of scented souls out of despair in her first year of marriage.
Furthermore, their only son, Dunzi, is an epileptic and severely neurologically impaired. He is in his early twenties, but has the mental age of about a seven year-old. During seizures, he becomes aggressive, though he can be quite tender and sentimental at other times. (Based on the symptoms he exhibited during seizures, I would classify his epilepsy as combined grand mal and psychomotor varieties. For that kind of epilepsy, the incidence of psychiatric problems between seizures in about 50% and the incidence of mental deficiency about 2.5%. Dunzi has both.)
Xiang has a lover, Ren (Baoguo Chen), who is a local married man and the transporter for the sesame oil. Xiang clearly wishes she were married to Ren rather than her husband. Ren is also the biological father of Xiang's school age daughter, Zhi Er, although neither Zhi Er nor Xiang's husband know that. Zhi Er takes a veiled interest in Zhi Er and wants to help pay for her schooling, but Xiang's husband views schooling for a daughter who won't even be part of their family as a waste of money.
Dunzi has an interest in the young women of the village, despite his mental limitations, and Xiang believes that his taking a wife might benefit his condition (though it violates Chinese law for an epileptic to marry). Xiang seeks the help of a matchmaker, Fifth Aunt, but the prospects for the mentally deficient Dunzi are limited and Xiang rejects the only willing candidate that Fifth Aunt is able to find. Xiang learns that Dunzi likes a pretty girl, Huanhuan (Wu Yujuan), daughter of a poor family in the village. Huanhuan has her heart set on a handsome young lad, named Jinhai, who works for Xiang, but Jinhai's parents won't agree to his marrying a girl from a poor family. Xiang decides to take matters into her own hands and has the financial resources to do it. First, she offers Jinhai a new, high-paying job in the city, as manager of a new outlet for the sesame oil. He'll make a lot more money, but Xiang's stipulations are that he promise to work there for a number of years, that he not marry for at least two years so that he can concentrate on learning the business, and that he find a girl in the city so that he won't be distracted by returning home. Xiang is effectively removing the competition for Huanhuan's hand. Then, Xiang pressures the local moneylender into calling in a loan previously given to Huanhuan's parents. They are dead broke and Xiang's intent is to force them into having to sell their daughter into marriage with Dunzi. Her tactics succeed and we are soon observing a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony with all of the trappings.
Xiang takes a trip to the city to meet with the business woman who represents the investors. They have agreed to the investment and will modernize Xiang's production facility to increase the amount of sesame oil that can be made. Xiang is overwhelmed by the fashionable dress of the Japanese woman and the décor of her apartment. The woman gives Xiang a lovely silk scarf that is far more beautiful than any article of clothing Xiang has ever owned. The Japanese woman is suddenly called away by her boss. Apparently her job expectations include catering to her boss's sexual needs. Xiang is confused by the concept of a woman being a man's "mistress." Later, as she thinks about the notion, she realizes that she is Ren's mistress and suddenly feels less good about the arrangement.
Meanwhile, Huanhuan's marriage to Dunzi proves problematic in a different way than Xiang's marriage to her loutish husband. Xiang has to accommodate her husband's drunken demands for sex and is beaten when she occasionally refuses, out of disgust. Huanhuan, on the other hand, has a husband who doesn't even understand the mechanics of copulation. He gets as far as ripping her clothes off, but then merely bites and pinches her, leaving black-and-blue marks. Even worse, when he has a seizure in bed, he involuntarily grips her throat. Xiang, who should have known better, has condemned her pretty daughter-in-law to something even worse than her own fate in life. Xiang is initially driven only by her love for her son and advancing his interests, but gradually feels the full weight of Huanhuan's pain, especially because it resembles her own. There's an exceptionally moving scene in which Xiang watches Huanhuan from a doorway as the younger woman gazes in despair out over the lake of scented souls, with the song quoted at the top of this review playing in the background.
Well, there are further developments in Xiang's relationship with Ren and in her relationship with Huanhuan, but I'll say no more. Check the film out for yourself to learn what happens.
Themes: This is a thematically complex film. Xie avoids, for example, making Xiang iconic of feminism. Certainly, there is much to admire in her strength and resourcefulness, but she's also taken the initiative to reenact her own subjugation in the lot of her hapless daughter-in-law. Yet, even there, her motivations for doing so are based on maternal devotion to her son, rather than her own personal benefit. Xiang was condemned as a child to an unhappy lot and raised herself to a position of relative power and affluence by determination and hard work. Although she controls the successful business and is even able to restrict her husband's spending, she is still subjected to his whims in the bedroom and treated abusively for any hesitancy. Hers is not a simple case of a victim becoming a victimizer, motivated by greed. It is more the issue of pursuing an immoral course of action to advance the interest of one's child.
Much of the emotional core of the film takes place in what we imagine to be the thoughts and feelings of Xiang. The essence of the film is her moral awakening to the plight of her daughter-in-law. At the same time, Huanhuan begins to understand how Xie has suffered before her and suffers in the present as well. As the two begin to forge a bond of sisterhood, Xie slowly reveals an essentially feminist orientation. Xiang becomes a symbol of indomitable feminine will and Huanhuan is well on her way to the same exalted status. The film is not anti-male, except that the two males that happen to be closest to the protagonist are miserable specimens, each in his own way. Several of the more peripheral males in the film are attractive characters, both physically and in character and competence.
Production Values: Xie wrote the screenplay, based on a novel by Zhou Daxin. It's a high quality script, with some nice symbolic touches as well as political and social messages. Xie returns his camera repeatedly to the lake of scented souls to add weight to the romantic suffering of the Xiang and Huanhuan, which they each bear with impressive stoicism. He also establishes realism and cultural authenticity by showing his viewers some of the details for the processing of the sesame oil. Politically, Xie walks a fine line in his presentation of the capitalism inherent in the Japanese investment in Xiang's sesame oil business. He show the Japanese characters mostly in a positive light (they're sophisticated, attractive, healthy, and modern), but also suggests the corrupting influence of wealth through the device of the businesswomen having to sleep with her boss. Xie's film is as weighty as some of those of Yimou but he avoids the intensely distressing elements that Yimou often builds into his films. The simple beauty of the images in The Women From the Lake of Scented Souls keeps it from getting too heavy.
Visually, this film is only a short step from the striking visual splendor of Zhang Yimou's early films. The color is rich as is the detail and composition. The spectacular wedding ceremony is magnificent, but some of the shots of the lotus blossoms and the blue-tinted lake are even better. There are a couple of lovely, mournful songs in what I imagine to be in the style of Chinese popular music. The music is credited to Wang Liping. I enjoyed the music as much as in any film I've seen lately.
Gaowa Siqin is no glamour queen, but she's an attractive enough woman of the sturdy but demure variety. Her performance is excellent and ought to be a delight for either men or women who appreciate a strong woman. She has worked in a number of films made in Hong Kong, but none that I recognize. Quesheng Lei, who played the husband, I believe, previously appeared as the village chief in The Story of Qiu Ju.
Bottom-Line:The Women From the Lake of Scented Souls shared the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1993. It is stylistically reminiscent of Zhang Yimou's early films, such as Ju Dou, and on a par with those films in beauty, thematic depth, and entertainment value. The Women From the Lake of Scented Souls is in Mandarin with English subtitles and has a running time of 106 minutes.
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