Movie Review - The Last Emperor

Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is a sweeping epic rendered in the grandest scale. This lavish film portrays the life and times of the last monarch of China, Henri Pu Yi, who ascended the throne as an infant at the age of three in 1908; and died a common man in 1970. The movie uses the life of Pu Yi to reveal a fascinating phase in Chinese history; the transition from feudalism to the revolution that it engendered and paved the way for modern day Communism.

Pu Yi ascended the throne at the age of three, growing up under the argus-eyed eunuch servants until he abdicated at the age of seven. Still Pu Yi remained as the nominal figurehead living a life of opulence for the convenience of the invisible powers that be. Under the watchful eyes of a Scottish tutor, Reginald Johnston, Pu Yi learns the ways of the western world, gets married and takes a concubine. In 1924, the emperor is exiled to Manchuria by the Nationalists; here the Japanese take control over him. Knowing fully well the ecstasy of freedom, yet having never tasted it, Pu Yi’s frustrations get the better of him as he turns into a decadent playboy. With the World War II taking center stage in world affairs Pu Yi is relegated to a mere puppet, always at the beck and call of the Japanese. With the WWII coming to an end, he is captured by the Russians who in turn hand him to their new allies, the Communists.

Pu Yi seems destined for an execution, a fate that he had resigned himself to, yet his new “masters” “re-educate” him in the Communist ways. Pu Yi lived the last 10 years of his life as a gardener in Peking until he died in 1967.

The movie seamlessly continues Hollywood’s penchant for grand offerings; Gone with the Wind to Ben Hur to Cleopatra to Lawrence of Arabia to The English Patient to Titanic. It’s a biopic with a difference. As in Gandhi or Lawrence of Arabia, far-reaching historical changes rang during the lives of the protagonists; the men in question were instrumental channeling those winds of change. Unlike them, Pu Yi had no control over the state of affairs. This is an epic, a different one; it is passive in its rendition. Pu Yi was born to riches but no freedom, his world of paradoxes never allowed him any power, he was a monarch but could not ever assert his authority.

The Last Emperor set a record of sorts; it won each of the nine Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture and Best Director. While it deserved in all aspects, John Lone playing Pu Yi missing out to Michael Douglas (Wall Street) for the Best Actor was an unfortunate one. Lone does exceptionally well to portray the passivity of the character, the helplessness, the decadence and the aging; particularly in that order. Peter O’Toole brings all his charm into Reginald Johnston.

The Chinese government granted exclusive authority to Bertolucci to shoot the film in the Forbidden City, thus giving him the opportunity to be the first Westerner to get inside the Forbidden City. Colours are brilliantly blended into the entire length; the esoteric walls of the Forbidden City are as much characters as the humans they contain. Bertolucci shot the movie in the most exotic manner possible, making it a visual treat. But it never fails to touch the heart. The movie ends with an extraordinary sequence, in which Pu Yi visits his old abode, the Forbidden City. Years ago, on the day of his coronation, the infant king had received a gift from a soldier; a grasshopper flaunting all its verdant beauty. The infant king had hidden it under his Dragon Throne. Pu Yi, now a commoner, finds the box containing the grasshopper, now old yet somehow managing to mock time. Yes, time is the real protagonist in this grand saga of the last emperor of China. And that makes the movie a venerable one. The exotica of locales, the vibrancy of colors combined with the Bertolucci’s wide-ranging vision of the times makes The Last Emperor an unforgettable experience.

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