Oscars 2012 Best Picture Nominees
thethirdmeow | thethirdmeow | diktynna | travellingpenguin:
I don’t know how 金陵十三钗 / The Flowers of War is being marketed in English-speaking, Christian-Bale-is-super-famous countries. I know it’s the classic tale of a huge piece of Chinese history that can only be told through the emotions of a white dude in order for Zhang Yimou to win an Oscar, but in China I definitely feel like Mr Bale has been side-lined, though obviously not pushed aside, for the ladies. Look at those ladies, staring straight ahead. I feel like this is not super common in movie posters, man on the side, women straight on, and I keep searching for more posters, more evidence that it’s being marketed differently. (It’s not hard: there are posters for this movie everywhere)
So far the US marketed has been a mixed bag. The poster I’ve seen around is much less promising than the one above (The woman, who I assume is Ni Ni’s character, doesn’t even have a face.) We’ve also seen two very different trailers, the first of which focuses primarily on Bale, the men of the film, and images of war [trigger warning: violence, blood, war, sexual assault]. The second trailer, however, lessens Bale’s presence and makes it seem as though the film’s narrator is Chinese woman (I’d name her but imdb’s cast list is embarrassing) and highlights the other women in the film. The second trailer is here [trigger warning: violence and war.]
The thing that is most frustrating about Bale’s presence in the film (beyond the clear white savior ish) is that the film is based on the novel The 13 Women of Nanjing. Here is a synopsis:
Yan Geling‘s novel is The 13 Women of Nanjing, about thirteen prostitutes who stepped in for female university students who were to be taken as “escorts” for the troops during the period when nearly 20,000 women and girls were raped and killed by the Japanese troops as the forces invaded China in 1937.
Bale’s presence as a primary character in the film is clearly unnecessary, but I am interested to see how much the film focuses on the women. The poster above and the second trailer give me some hope, but experience makes me skeptical.
Ugh, the promotion looks so disgusting to me.
The Rape of Nanking was pretty much a horror story, a profound moment in WWII for China, and indicative of Japan’s largely-ignored brutality towards the Asian countries it wrongly invaded and occupied. Why this story needs to be told from a White Man Savior’s POV is upsetting, perplexing, and wrong.
I really hope it’s just the case of misleading promos.
Reblogging again with some additional info:
While Western missionaries were definitely present in Nanking, and their presence helped save many innocent Chinese men, women, and children from the Japanese troops, it should be noted that the primary reason Westerners even know about the Rape of Nanking was because of a second-generation, Chinese-American journalist named Iris Chang. Her book is not without controversy - it’s been accused of being inaccurate, for instance, largely due to the fact that she did not speak or read Chinese herself. However, she campaigned heavily for the Japanese government to both publicly acknowledge, and apologize for, their wartime atrocities. After her suicide (she suffered depression through her life, and according to friends and family, her work on researching the Nanking Massacre left a mark on her), survivors of Nanking paid homage to her and her efforts.
Idk. I think narratively, if one wanted to “draw in” a Western audience, there was no reason at all not to have a Chinese-American POV. Why not have an enterprising history student research their first novel/thesis/etc., and in the process find a survivor who could tell his/her tale? I honestly don’t understand why the tale of a white American missionary is even needed, seeing as how it’s been done to death 123908 times before in previous movies.
While I do personally find the latter scenario (of a Chinese-American conducting research and connecting with a survivor along the way) a much more compelling plot, I also don’t know where the synopsis cited above comes from? Because a search for the novel on Amazon brought up this synopsis:
This moving short novel is based on true events that took place during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937 when the Japanese invaded the Chinese city, slaughtering not only soldiers but raping and murdering the civilian population as well. It tells the story of an American missionary who, for a few terrifying days, finds himself sheltering a group of schoolgirls, prostitutes and wounded Chinese soldiers in the compound of his church.
Additionally, Iris Chang’s research was largely fueled/influenced by the diaries of two “Westerners”: John Rabe (a German who was a member of the Nazi Party), and Minnie Vautrin, who was an American missionary.
This certainly doesn’t mean that we need more White Savior narratives in the global cinematic canon, but there does seem to be a fairly sound historical basis for this one, at least. I think the question that still remains is, if Tarantino can blow up Hitler, why can’t a prostitute who survived the atrocities of Nanking be the one to lead her countrymen to safety?
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of battles fought, and lives lost.
Another Earth, 2011What would we really like to see if we could stand outside ourselves and look at us?
So basically, we’re all going to watch for the plot.
You give me a time and a place, and I give you a five-minute window.
