写在前面:这是我本科通识课堂上用英文写的一篇影评。因为我并没有受过电影学或者性别研究相关的写作训练,难免有些词用得不够恰当。原文里也许还有语法错误或者表达不当的地方,也请谅解。
Although based on an ungendered perspective, the 1987 film Human, Woman, Demon by Huang Shuqin depicts the development of a woman's selfhood that can be interpreted through her "desire for and denial of the female identity" (172; 219). The protagonist, Qiuyun, has fully devoted herself to her theatrical career as the male lead to get away with the traumatizing experiences from childhood, which contributed to her adolescent disorientation in gender identity and career goals. Being a respected mid-aged woman, her mind is continually being torn apart by the binary gender roles that socio-ideologically enforced on her, as she maintains as a masqueraded model of manliness/masculinity on stage and a wife-mother figure in unfulfilling family life (219). The film's ending embodies her reconciliation with her inner struggles as she finds peace and her female subjectivity in communion with her ghost persona on stage.
In a seamless, panning transition of the camera, the scene edited before Qiuyun's final reconciliation with the opera ghost depicts the very beginning of her life through the narrative of an elderly midwife. The midwife recalls the day of Qiuyun's birth (94:27-94:35) and how she turned out to be a girl to her father's surprise, as he had presumed her to be a boy until the midwife examined her body, "When I took a look at you, I didn't see the manhood. You are really a girl! /等我一看啊,少了那个玩意儿…是个小姑娘家!(笑)." In addition to her conversation with her father after the village banquet, I think that Qiuyun's reunion with the midwife foreshadows the emancipation of her repressed female identity. Appearing as a new character in the next-to-last scene, my understanding is that the midwife serves symbolic purposes as an incarnation of the proper womanhood and Qiuyun's guide out of the identity dilemma.
Based on the few lines, it is not difficult to observe that the midwife is an attentive, keen person and the only female character that has ever shown benignancy to Qiuyun throughout the film. Even that colleague who babysits her younger child is indifferent to her complaints about her husband (74:01), not to mention the town girls who left her helpless in public ostracism (40:43) and the other students in the opera troupe. The midwife is also an antithesis to Qiuyun's mother, for the former welcomes her female body into the world, while the latter makes her deny the female identity. According to Cui, the screen space can be seen as "a psychological world suggesting the characters' potential thoughts and feelings" (236). The amber color palette in this scene creates a heart-warming atmosphere, making the midwife a maternal figure, moreover, a model of morality that the heroine never had.
Not only does their brief reencounter (93:27-94:35) recognize her female identity as inevitable and naturally given, it also amends the pains the protagonist has endured for the pursuit of the female identity. Caught up in the gossip of a sexual scandal with teacher Zhang, one of the male figures that evoke her desire to secure a female identity, the young Qiuyun is voiceless and frantically spreads her face with a hideous masquerade of red and black paints (70:15). She has smeared down the colors with both hands and caressed her cheeks before she has the meltdown (69:56-70:12). It is then she realizes that she has no one to seek guardian from. In the post banquet scene, which supposedly happens many years after the scandal, another pair of hands fondles along her cheeks. The midwife touches Qiuyun as gentle as possible when she expresses her joy in finding out Qiuyun's female identity (94:35). Both scenes have the visual of the heroine centered within the frame in a close-up shot and the same motion of hands. They are filmed with low-key lighting in dark background in the same camera angle as well. Qiuyun, in both timelines, is the subject of the screen space and her psychological world. Apart from the costume and make-up, the two scenes are parallel to each other yet convey distinctive messages based on each scene's mood. The teenager Qiuyun is under anxiety and imbalanced by her choice of gender, and she goes into self-destruction as the hands fall and carry her cheeks; The mid-aged Qiuyun is happy to see her old acquaintance, and then she reveals a genuine grin—a sign of self-salvation.