The lanterns come down, we know what that means – because we know what it means to the wives watching from their doors.

The lanterns go up, we know what that means. Beat by beat, we’re drawn into this cold, quiet world, and the process is less dependent on dialogue than it is patterns and rhythm and faces. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s easy to see how it works. Who are we to judge? Now, this isn’t a “seduction” of the viewer, nor a contextualization project common to today’s media. It’s just a way of life, after all, and an old one. Another wife will do something underhanded to screw over Songlian, and suddenly we want Songlian to get the husband into bed as a riposte. As time goes on, the game seems less and less stupid.

Songlian’s goal isn’t to escape her new life as a sex slave, but to beat the other women at their stupid game, warring for the husband’s attention. It’s a testament to Zhang Yimou’s renowned filmmaking that he has us almost forget the big picture. As a result, Raise the Red Lantern features the most suspenseful haircut I’ve ever seen, Eastern Promises included – though technically, that was a shave. One wife’s jealous antics are revealed as a kind of orientation program, while another’s comforting smile turns icy and cruel. Our sympathies begin to split, and then recalculate. Songlian enters a story in the midst of unfolding, with long-simmering plots and betrayals and bad decisions nevertheless understood. We zoom all the way in on the microscope to behold it, and that’s where we unlock the film’s hidden complexities. Songlian might be important in this world, but it’s a world nested within the real one. Of course, it’s only the illusion of power, just as the gates and alleys and buildings create the illusion of a town. For the first time in her life, she’s found herself in a place where she has power. Songlian confirms it, and after Yan’er reacts with disappointment, Songlian orders her to carry her suitcase inside. She walks over to a young maid washing clothes, Yan’er, who asks if she is indeed the fourth wife. When Songlian first arrives at the palace, accessed by an almost comical series of gates and alleys, of course she’s nervous and frightened, but then something strange happens. His interactions with the four wives is surprising, as he gives in to their demands and his anger doesn’t carry the threat of physical violence.

In fact, the man is always kept at the edge of the frame, or in the distance. What follows is a portrait of what must be the last days of an ancient custom, as Songlian becomes a fourth wife – or concubine – more so marrying a family tradition than a man. At least, she knows what will happen, but not why or how. She’s being married off to a wealthy man, and is fully aware of the terrible implications. As she speaks, surrendering to the machinations of an off-screen stepmother, tears roll down an otherwise still face. We open on a kind of figurative establishing shot, one careful not to show us where we are, and that therefore has an instructional quality: we’re straight-on with our heroine Songlian, played by Gong Li in one of her defining roles. I just sat there, responded to a couple of texts, and realized that as much as I’d been planning on writing a review for Raise the Red Lantern – this site would be incomplete without it! – doing so would mean lingering in that head space, and returning to that world. The credits rolled and the Blu-ray disc whirred inside the PS4 and I clicked around for a bit, first on the trailer by accident and then on an interview with film historian Tony Raynes. It’s been a long time that I’ve been this shaken by a movie. All of the great films I’ve seen this year – John Wick: Chapter 4, Dragon Inn, Ran – left me thrilled or excited or breathless but intact.

Red and blue lantern