Isabella Tianzi Cai
H72.1010 Film Form/Film Sense (Simon)
October 30, 2009
The scene I chose is from Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007). It is Chapter 16 on the DVD scene selection menu, under the title “Needle and Thread.” Requested by Mr. Yee, Mak Tai Tai goes to meet him in the Japanese district. Like before, she has no idea as to what to expect there. The road before her is full of risk, and she knows that with each step forward the danger intensifies. Yet she knows the fearsome irony that with each step his trust is earned too. I want to argue that the film is focalized through her in this scene. What she observes about him will not only complicate her emotional state later on, but also challenge spectators’ ideological norms.
The scene begins with a brief long shot of a guarded bridge, which is the entryway of the Japanese district. It is nighttime; several trucks of heavily armed Japanese soldiers are leaving the district while incoming vehicles and pedestrians are stopped and checked by Japanese sentries. Mak Tai Tai’s car pulls near. She hands her entry permit to her chauffeur and asks, “Is it Mr. Yee’s idea to come to the Japanese district?” There is no reply from the chauffeur except a slight, almost undetectable nod.
Probably the chauffeur has been told to be quiet; his obedience in this case then contrasts finely against Mak Tai Tai’s self-imposed composure. She gets off the car on a busy street. Apparently having never been here before, she steals a few glances all around her as she walks up the front stairs of a building, keeping each movement as discreet as she can. While she is in the foreground, behind her on the street are all kinds of identifiable Japanese. For examples, two women dressed in identical kimonos hover past, and Japanese soldiers in their uniforms roam about in groups of two or three too. The building that she enters looks western because it has a few Greek columns on its facade. Undoubtedly European colonizers must have occupied it before the Japanese.
In a tracking shot, Mak Tai Tai is shown moving through this physical space; music begins to change from non-diegetic (movie soundtrack) to diegetic (Japanese singing) as she goes inside the building. As much a surprise to her as to us, the interior of the building is a completely different world. Fusumas, tatami mats, and a wooden stairwell tell us that the Japanese have constructed a tea house inside the building. Soon a Japanese hostess dressed in an elaborate kimono comes to the front door to greet Mak Tai Tai. Even though Mak Tai Tai speaks Japanese, she asks for Mr. Yee’s whereabouts in Mandarin. The hostess, though able to understand Mak Tai Tai in Mandarin, replies in Japanese. The language difference hardly raises any racial tension here, but it is something to keep in mind. Mak Tai Tai sits down to take off her shoes, her background is again highlighted. The tea house has a dance floor; it is where the Japanese singing comes from.
Mak Tai Tai follows the hostess to some inside guest rooms. In a quick sequence with many cuts and handheld camera movements, Mak Tai Tai is shown being accosted by a drunken Japanese general. He mistakes her to be one of the tea house’s girls and drags her to his chamber where a group of Japanese generals are drinking away with oirans. Also in the room are some singing and dancing geishas. Because most of the shots are based on her point of view, and she is on her feet while the rest are on their butts—the only standing general has embarrassedly fallen down onto the floor as a result of trying to pull Mak Tai Tai into the room—the way that she looks at them is almost censorious. The drunken men all look idle and worthless, while the women, though sober, appear nonetheless very pathetic.
Finally the hostess saves Mak Tai Tai from getting into more troubles with the Japanese. Mak Tai Tai is ushered to the last room at the end of the corridor. The first shot from inside the chamber shows Mak Tai Tai at the far end of the frame while Mr. Yee is in the foreground with his back facing the camera. Two rows of Japanese coffee tables with left-over food on them indicate a dinner has just taken place. Mr. Yee’s seat, which is closer to the rear end of the room, hints that he is unlikely one of the most important people who have attended the dinner. Mr. Yee initiates a conversation. He says that he is punishing himself by waiting for her. However, when she probes the real reason that he invites her here, he evades the question by saying that he has just finished some business.
Before Mak Tai Tai goes to sit down with Mr. Yee, she takes off her overcoat and closes the last shoji in the room. Following her movement, the camera reveals two men walking down the corridor in a heated discussion. They have apparently not noticed Mr. Yee, but a cut to a reaction shot of Mr. Yee shows him bending his head to avoid eye contact with those men. Mak Tai Tai observes his uneasiness and elegantly slides close the shoji. Two more reaction shots of Mr. Yee show a frown on his face and several blinks following that. Mr. Yee seems to be suppressing some unpleasant thoughts on his mind, but only after a while is he able to calm himself down. He starts a monologue by first commenting on the singing next door, “They sing like they’re crying, like dogs howling their dead masters. These Japanese devils kill people like flies, but deep down they’re scared as hell. All our days are numbered since the Americans entered the war. Yet here we are with our painted faces, listening to their off-tune songs.” He sneers, “Just listen.” Obviously Mr. Yee is incredibly distressed at the moment because otherwise he would not choose to talk about his feelings. He works for Wang Jingwei’s collaborationist government, which is a puppet government supported by the Japanese, who are responsible for numerous war atrocities in China including the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937. Someone like him has no respect to speak of because he is simultaneously despised by his countrymen and emasculated by the Japanese. When Mak Tai Tai makes a guess of why he wants her here, that is, he wants her to be his whore, he makes a self-ridicule by saying that he knows better than her about how to be a whore in the place. The statement is equivocal. By spending so much time with the Japanese, he indeed knows better about how to be an oirans or a geisha. However, being with the Japanese has also reduced him to an inferior sex with little, if no power. The collaborationist government upholds pan-Asianism as one of its three key principles, but in reality, it is nothing more than a downtrodden slave to Japan.
Docilely leaning on his lap, Mak Tai Tai listens to Mr. Yee intently. After some careful thought, she suggests that she sing a song for him. This is an especially significant moment. In terms of physical space, both of them are inside a Japanese tea house, which is inside a European building, which is inside the Japanese district, which is inside China. Trapped doubly in the imperialists’ powers in his home country, Mr. Yee could only liken himself to a prostitute and laugh at himself. Mak Tai Tai ventures to sing a folk song in Chinese in this extremely complicated space. Her voice does not simply wipe out the Japanese singing next door; it represents the Chinese resistance, which is also the political movement that she affiliates herself with.
The song Mak Tai Tai sings is from a 1937 Chinese film Street Angel by Yuan Muzhi; a slave girl from north China who is forced to leave her home and work for a nasty landlord sings the same song in that film. It was immensely popular during the war years and loved by old and young alike. Divided into three parts, the song goes back and forth between melancholy and love with increasing intensity. In Lust, Caution, this intensity is matched by the distance between Mak Tai Tai and Mr. Yee as well as the degree of close-up on both of them. She starts singing ten feet away from him. The first part of the song goes like, “From the end of the earth to the farthest sea, I search and search for my heart’s companion. A young girl sings while he accompanies her. Your heart is my heart. Your heart is my heart.” Mak Tai Tai dances as she sings, and Mr. Yee chuckles as he smokes.
If the first part of the song is somewhat sweet, the second part begins to pain the heart. Mak Tai Tai leans against a fusuma and casts a downward glance as she sings, “Looking north from my mountain nest, my tears fall and wet my blouse. Missing him, I will not rest. Only love that lasts through hard time is true. Only love that lasts through hard time is true.” Mr. Yee’s hand begins to shiver as he listens to this part of the song. He finally has to put down his cigarette because his hands shake more and more violently. To cover it up, he pours himself a cup of sake. In 1942, Japanese has already occupied most of China. The nationalist government kept retrieving as the Japanese military force advanced. The capital of the nationalist regime was relocated first from Nanjing to Shanghai, and then from Shanghai to Wuhan, and finally from Wuhan to Chongqing. Many refugees from the north fled to the south, and they were living through hell. Mr. Yee knows this very well. Among the agents that he has interrogated, some must have been separated from their lovers. Furthermore, Mak Tai Tai has come to occupy a tender part of his heart. He may be thinking that their love is hard-earned and therefore true.
Mak Tai Tai is attuned to what Mr. Yee is thinking and feeling. She sits down next to him as she goes on singing the third part of the song, “In life, who does not cherish the springtime of youth? A young girl to a man is like thread to its needle. Ah, my beautiful man. We’re like a threaded needle, never to be separated. We’re like a threaded needle, never to be separated.” Several interesting camera and editing choices are used here. First, in the long shot where the two of them are seen, a vase of plum blossoms is seen between them, matching their eye line, in the background. Flowers signify springtime; both the plum blossoms and the flowers on Mak Tai Tai’s cheongsam resonate with the theme of youth in the lyrics. Secondly, Mak Tai Tai lifts the cup of sake for Mr. Yee and waits for him to drink it before she sings “a young girl to a man is like thread to its needle.” Her pause accentuates the metaphor because anyone who hears the word “youth” in a song is likely to reminisce, at least a little, about his or her youth. We do not know Mr. Yee’s past, but he must have one, and it is almost certain that his past is better than his present, for a person’s wellbeing is tied to his or her country’s wellbeing. Lastly, Mak Tai Tai touches Mr. Yee’s hand and caresses it as she repeats the last line of the lyrics. At this point, Mr. Yee’s emotions have become overwhelming. The camera tracks his hand’s movement as he wipes his tears away and holds her wrist. A little puzzlingly, she looks somewhat nonchalant and unmoved by the song she sings whereas he is completely absorbed by it. As she shifts her body a little, he responds by letting her hand go, smiling very lightly, and then giving her a round of applause. The scene ends with a close-up shot of her face as she smiles quietly at him.
To conclude, this scene is intensely internally focalized through Mak Tai Tai. Even though she has not yet toppled over to love him, as can be argued by the fact that she contains her emotions whereas Mr. Yee has let his rupture, her meeting with him at the Japanese tea house is a potential seed of love. Personally, I find Dublin’s sudden declaration of love unfathomable in Notorious because to me there are insufficient contexts to summon his change from being so cold to suddenly so warm to Alicia. However, in Lust, Caution, I think Ang Lee has aligned us with Mr. Yee (through internal focalization through Mak Tai Tai) before showing Mak Tai Tai’s falling in love with him later. This scene is more crucial for understanding how genuine his love is for her than the love scenes because sex is one-dimensional while love encompasses many meanings beyond the body. Mr. Yee’s emotional attachment to Mak Tai Tai is probably a greater source of uncertainty and dilemma than his bodily attachment to her. There is no doubt that she loves her country because she sacrifices herself for this cause. However, when the man that she hates shows that he is not a quisling without feelings for his home country, she is no longer as determined to have him executed as before. In the end, the scene posts a question for all of us: if a monster can be truly touched by a song, is he really a monster?
