Abstract:The movie The Beautiful Woman talks about a Chinese woman, who falls into the mental difficult position. It is a total feminist film, that is means it is directing by a female director, taking female as the subject, expressing women’s personal feeling. The director Li Yu, standing on a feminine side, observes the society and experiences the life. The film uses a pure feminist angle to present the difficult position of survival. It is a world lacking good men that all men appeared in the film are so disappointing. At the same time, it is also a film searching the feminist spiritual outlet. The term ‘The Male Gaze’ which created by Laura Mulvey always runs through the film.
Key words:feminine; the male gaze; difficult position; men lack
1.1 psychoanalysis and feminist film theory
Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. The "Gaze" is a psychoanalytical term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe a condition where the mature autonomous subject observes “the observation of himself” in a mirror. He argued that the concept of the gaze is important in his “mirror stage” of infantile psychological development. The psychological effect, Lacan argues, is that the subject"s autonomy is brought into question by the projection of her "identity" on to an exterior object. “tat tvam asi” (that which you are) This concept is bound with his theory of the mirror stage, where in childhood, conceives the formation of external identities, (Lacan posits a mirror but any object will do) Lacan suggests that the effect "Gaze" of the mirror can similarly be produced by any conceivable object.
The Beautiful Woman is a feminist film about female which is deep and sorrowful, just like a gloomy music. It is natural and possess a kind of poetic beauty. This is a story happened in a certain place in a small town of Sichuan Province, people in the film all speak Sichuan dialect, the unadorned language properly reveal the true life of a small town in 1980s to 1990s of China.
This film always surrounded by the mist which is particular in Sichuan Basin: wet air, grey atmosphere, historical town etc, all of these get together formed a kind of real beauty. The director Li Yu said: ‘I always think this film is a film full of hope because this is a story of fate and actually it is an optimistic film about searching for the outlet.’①
1.1.1 the main story line of this film
The story of this film occurred in 1980s, in a small town of Sichuan province. Xiao Yun, a 16 years old high school student has sexual relationship with her classmate Wangfeng and is pregnant by accident, finally they are expelled by school. Before the baby born out, baby’s father leave town silently, in fact, sensitive and pretty Xiao Yun bear much more than Wangfeng from family and society. Ten years later, Xiao Yun become an actress of a locate Sichuan opera group, and has relationship with a married man. Her life is dark and boring. The married man can’t marry her, so her social position is not accepted, meanwhile, the man can’t satisfy her desire for love. Until her ten-year-old son appears, her life seems to be a little brighter.
1.2.2 gaze――the identity of ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’
This is a film with women’s angle of view, so men in the film definitely became a reference. Except the little boy Xiao Yong, all the men were ‘marginalized’. The image is men group’s image. What is the characteristic of the group’s image? Irresponsible, narrow, lust of women, fickle in love...These images highlight the hardship of women’s life process. The entire father image was absent. Some of them have been dead, some of them have ran away from home. But at the same time they are present in absence.
1.2.3 The difficult position――where is the spiritual outlet of women
The Beautiful Woman stands on the opposite side of male culture, taking female as the narrative subject to show the truth of women’s striving for survival right under the pressure of male authority. It demonstrates women’s inherent beauty of dignity and the spirit of insistent pursue for ideal.
The film suddenly ends with the kiss between Xiao Yun and Xiao Yong. Xiao Yun has known all the truth, and acknowledges the role of ‘mother’ mentally , at the end, she chooses to leave. For this ending, the director Li Yu said: ‘any other endings are traditional if I don’t design the leaving of Xiao Yun. Despite whether make the mother and son recognize each other, it will be a tragic movie and becomes traditional narration. Only let her leave this place is her unique outlet.’②At the very end of the film, Xiao Yong looks at ‘sister Yun’ getting on the train and going away, disappearing in his eyes.
1.3 the artistic value of the film
The film ‘The Beautiful Woman’ is directed by Li Yu in 2005 and it wined the European Artistic Prize on the 62th Venice Film Festival. Dai Jinhua once said: “ ‘Human ,Ghost ,Love’ directed by Huang Shuqin is the first and also the unique ‘feminist film’ so far in a certain sense.”③From this point of view, ‘The Beautiful Woman’ is not inferior than ‘Human, Ghost, Love’. ‘The Beautiful Woman’ is such a natural movie which has no luxuriant appearance, no special and delicate language, but it naturally present the background of 1980s and 1990s rather than simply pile up some nostalgic elements. What’s more, it is a good and vivid story with affection and integration that satisfying people’s emotion to kinship.(作者单位：四川外语学院研究生部)
注解
① 新浪娱乐，影片《红颜》导演阐述，https://ent.省略/m/ 2005-08-05/1117801707.html
② 女性视觉下的世俗言说――李玉访谈［J］. 电影艺术，2006，（1）
③ 戴锦华. 电影批评. 北京: 北京大学出版社,2006.3
Bibliography
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［2］ 戴锦华. 电影批评［J］. 北京.北京大学出版社,2006.3
［3］ Jessica Munns and Gita Rajan. A Cultural Studies Reader :History, Theory, Practice［M］ Singapore: Longman Singapore Publishers (Pte) Ltd.