Spartan prison life in Maoist China of the 1950s: muted, colourless, very personal and very sad.
Life in the Imperial court of China early in the 20th Century: opulent, spectacular and incredibly self-indulgent.
The contrast between these two images is jarring, and we flit back and forth between them throughout Bernardo Bertolucci's spectacular epic The Last Emperor.
The story of Pu Yi, China's last emperor, is fascinating. He came to the throne at the age of three, with a staff of 1,200 eunuchs and the adulation of half a billion people. When he was still a child, the Chinese Republic was formed and a political deal saved his title and wealth, but effectively imprisoned him forever in the Forbidden City. His story as an adult is marked by abdication, misguided alliance with the Japanese, judgement by Communist China, and his days as a gardener in 1960s Beijing.
This is an epic story, and Bertolucci has told it in an epic manner, while staying connected to the tragic personal story of a man who was given everything as a child except the ability to adapt.
The Last Emperor is built around flashbacks from Pu Yi's 1950s prison existence to his earlier life. It does not dwell on the dreary days of 're-education', but instead focuses on the colour and excitement of the emperor's earlier years. Some 19,000 extras were used in the making of the film, and it has a remarkably grand scale, especially since the flashbacks (and the emperor) don't leave the Forbidden City until well into the film. The costumes, the hair, the sets and the thousands of extras are all used to great effect in this fascinating story of a living anachronism. While it is a long film with slower moments, the parallel personal and political stories are compelling enough to keep the viewer interested throughout.
The Communist regime is portrayed negatively, and the film is equally harsh in its characterisation of the politics of the royal court and the manipulations of the Japanese.
In the end, we are left feeling disgusted with all the regimes and personally sympathetic with the last emperor, who in many ways was just along for the ride.
