Farewell My Concubine.

Farewell My Concubine is both voluptuous and acrid. Connoisseurs of the exotic will be well enough satisfied with the spectacle in this Chinese movie about the linked destinies of two Beijing Opera stars: the theatrical masks and headdresses; the swirling yellow backdrop curtains against which shadows of performers glide; theatrical apprentices exercising half-naked in the freezing morning air while singing to the rising sun of the strength that is filling their bodies; the massive political demonstrations that turn city squares into outdoor courtrooms. But Chen Kaige's film is no confection, no Last Emperor. It is both a meditation on the ravaging of human potential and an epic hate letter to the theater. Farewell My Concubine is fueled by pain.

In fact, early in the film, pain literally floods the screen with color. After a prologue showing the two main characters - Shitou, the portrayer of heroic warriors, and Douzi, the female impersonator specializing in faithful concubines - getting ready to rehearse a farewell performance of their best loved vehicle "Farewell My Concubine" in 1977, we are taken back to their childhood in the 1920s. In black-and-white, we see the turmoil in the streets of Beijing that reflects the inability of the war lords to rule in the face of Western exploitation and Japanese imperialism. A desperate prostitute holding her starving child watches a theater troupe being harassed by a mob. The boy actor, Shitou, wins the crowd over with the old Kung-fu stunt of breaking a board with his head. But instead of thanking his apprentice, the troupe's leader-teacher beats him for a recent delinquency. And, as each blow falls on the lad's backside, the nostalgic black-and-white photography turns into vivid color.

One scene later, the prostitute offers her little son, Douzi, for membership in the company. Although actors are regarded as being only one step above prostitution, at least Douzi will be fed and sheltered. But the troupe's leader refuses: the boy has an extra finger and this minor freakishness disqualifies him. So Mother takes an ax and chops off the offending digit. Douzi's contract is signed with his blood. Then he looks around. Mother has disappeared. Shortly after, Douzi burns the cape she wrapped about him against the cold. A new home accepted, his new identity has begun, and Douzi will have to find other ways to warm himself.

Is that new identity as an impersonator of maidens and concubines a fulfillment or a thwarting of Douzi's soul? There's no easy answer to this. Early in his training, Douzi is inspired through watching a performance of veterans to achieve greatness in his own craft, but why does he keep changing the line, "By nature I am a girl, not a boy" to "I wn a boy, not a girl"? Was he destined to be a player, all right, but not exclusively of female roles? Or is he simply resentful at having to break from Mother and childhood so suddenly, so violently? In other words, has Douzi found the right path in the wrong way, or is he altogether on the wrong path? In any case, it is as a "female" that he is forced to function both off stage and on.

And Shitou, the macho enactor of warriors ... is he fulfilling himself? Apparently comfortable with his maleness and married to a former prostitute who adores him, he seems happy. But then why does he constantly feel the need to defy those with the power to hurt him? As a boy he submitted to the blows of his teacher with a willingness bordering on gusto, but as an adult master actor he repeatedly places himself in situations that threaten his life, his livelihood, and his loved ones and colleagues. Perhaps if he had defied his teacher, he wouldn't have achieved a career but also wouldn't have felt compelled to court disaster. And perhaps then he wouldn't feel so resentful whenever Douzi bails him out by giving private performances for the officials and military officers whom Shitou has offended.

These are fascinating ambiguities but we in the audience ponder them more than the characters do. Considering that so much of this movie's drama depends on how the changes and dangers of history force people to squirm within the armors of their personalities, there is surprisingly little dramatized introspection. There is no need for it in the childhood scenes which comprise the first quarter. The sequences of training, abuse, childish camaraderie are as emotionally direct, fluent, and naked as anything in Shoeshine or Forbidden Games. They rouse and sting the viewer. In them, we witness the violent formation and deformation of human nature. Later, as the grown actors face difficulties with successive governments and in their troubled domestic lives, we may justly expect psychological complexity rather than emotional nakedness, but this complexity remains latent, resident in the material but seldom explored through give-and-take between characters. For instance, the drama cries out for a decisive confrontation between Douzi (the abandoned son of a prostitute) and Shitou's wife (an ex-prostitute), but all we get are several minor skirmishes. Chen Kaige is willing to put the bodies and nerves of his characters on the rack but he keeps a respectful distance from their thoughts. Therefore, the latter three quarters of Concubine have a static quality that is a relative letdown after the highly charged childhood episodes.

Of course, this lack of dynamism may be Chen's very point. Under the opacity of adult good manners, prideful aloofness, stoicism, and hypocrisy, Shitou and Douzi remain children. The director may feel that there is no need for psychological probing of his heroes since we have already learned everything about these two by watching them as children. And, sure enough, under pressure they always revert to childish form. Douzi always sacrifices himself just as the traditional woman is taught to do, and always resents the fact that his devotion invariably goes unappreciated. And Shitou must always bluster his way into danger like a traditional male and must also bluster his resentment whenever bailed out by his "concubine." Something is missing at the core of their natures. Interrogated by the Red Guard, they don't merely collapse but drag each other down in an ecstasy of unleashed rancor. Beaten by the old when they are little, beaten by the young when they are old, these two actors, reputedly so splendid on stage, are programmed for degradation. In Farewell My Concubine, we have a static, despairing view of human nature.

I write "reputedly so splendid" because, though there are gripping sequences of theatrical training and breathtaking views of backstage activity, we are allotted only glimpses of the actual performances. Are Leslie Cheung and Zhand Fengyi, so felicitous in their characterizations of Douzi and Shitou, not adept at Beijing Opera style? Or was Chen Kaige, by his very omission, evincing a disgust with an art form that has made his heroes suffer so grievously? If the latter, he made a mistake. Recently, I had another look at Mephisto with Klus Maria Brandauer enacting a spectacularly talented and spectacularly amoral actor who collaborates with the Nazis. The film's director, Istvin Szabo, shows us the antihero on stage, doing everything from operetta to Goethe. By witnessing Brandauer's exultation in his artistry, we understand why he cozies up to a regime that gives him a stage to dominate. For want of a comparable look at Shitou and Douzi, we lack the sensual rationale for their acceptance of a life that has done so much to cramp their spirits.

Nevertheless, Farewell My Concubine is quite compelling. If the protagonists are finally as static as statues, we can nevertheless circle round a statue and view it from different angles. Chen does this circling for us through subtle parallels, repetitions, contrasts. One example: seeing his future wife besieged by rather violent customers on the second floor of a whorehouse, Shitou, standing on the ground floor, calls to her to throw herself down into his arms. It's a perilous drop but, trusting his acrobatic skill, she jumps. Bracing himself, Shitou saves her. Much later in the movie, Shitou is behaving with self-destructive bravado toward some politically dangerous intruders who have swarmed into his theater. Standing on a platform high above the stage, the actor's wife gets his attention with a cry. He looks up, and she tosses him an umbrella which he deftly catches. Not nearly so spectacular a feat as catching a plummeting body, but she has made her point: brace yourself once again and save both of us.

Because of its visual beauty and vital acting, and a story that takes us through the hazards of several tyrannical regimes, Farewell My Concubine has the texture of a great historical novel. What it lacks, or rather what it deliberately eschews, is the psychological penetration of such a novel. Let's not look too deeply, Chen Kaige seems to say, some wounds are best left unprobed.