FLOWERS OF WAR is the most expensive Chinese film to date, and unlike the Hollywood counterpart, this is not a film that relies on special effects to justify its existence. Rather, director Zhang Yimou has done here what he has always done best, tell a compelling and very human story with a rare and specific artistry. The canvas is larger, the Rape of Nanking in 1937, but the essential elements that make Zhang one of the best filmmakers currently working are unsullied by the widened scope.
Set in a convent school, the story brings together unlikely allies. John Miller (Christian Bale), a mortician who pursues carnal pleasures when not plying his trade, Shu (Xinyi Zhang), one of the schoolgirls trapped in the sanctuary as the city around her falls and her sense of security is toppled in more than one sense, George (Tinyuan Huang), the orphan boy adopted by the late priest who has taken to heart the fathers last instruction for him to take care of the girls, Major Li (Dawei Tong), the last defender of the city, and Yu Mo (Ni Ni) the star of a band of prostitutes who have been promised that sanctuary by the convents departed cook. Preconceived notions make for the usual problems as they all share the sacred space, but though the also usual learning that they are more alike than different follows, it has a delicate sensitivity coupled with Zhangs unerring sense of humanity. Each has a past, distant or near, with which he or she must come to terms as they overcome suspicions, dislikes, and their own fears that each moment might be the last.
In the midst of unthinkable brutality, Zhang has found a savage poetry, not to soften the horror, but rather to compel the audience to watch it without being able to turn away. Using his trademark fascination with saturated color, in this case he does not limit himself to just one or two, but rather the entire spectrum as reflected through the stained-glass windows of the church. The colors fall upon stone floors, frightened girls, and ravaging soldiers without discrimination, one moment illuminating Shus face with a rainbow as she watches the equally gaudy prostitutes make their way across the convent courtyard, swinging their hips, talking loudly, laughing through lips of a seductive and savage red. Later, the same spectrum puddles next to the blood pouring noiseless from a corpse so suddenly dead that the surprise becomes an almost perceptible shade in the mix.
Zhangs use of color is profound, but no less profound than the powerful, understated performances of his actors. Bale, as is to be expected from his body of work, is passionate and fearless as he goes from reprobate to saint who can credibly demand of the Japanese soldiers rounding up the terrified schoolgirls that they stop in the name of the Father. The surprises are from the younger cast members, some like Ni Ni in their first major roles. She is assured as the sophisticated prostitute with a heart not of gold, to cliché, but of the young girl whose innocence was stolen too early. She is every bit Bales equal in every scene they share and in the spectrum of emotion that echoes the colors spectrum Zhang uses to define the film and their gradual affection and, more, respect. A tiny narrowing of her eyes in an otherwise impassive face, or one tear stealing down speak volumes of both courage and resignation. Huang, too, holds his own, ineffectually staving off Millers attempts to steal from the convent with only the ferocity of dedication to his holy mission and a poignant, childlike confusion about the way adults behave.
FLOWERS OF WAR is not an easy film, but it is a ravishing one that demands of its audience a consideration of right and wrong under impossible situations. If it pleads to earnestly the case of such situations bringing out the best in people more than the worst even as he details the worst that was visited upon Nanking, he is holding out a hope that burns in even the most cynical heart.
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