Puyi is undoubtedly the most legendary emperor. He has been emperor three times and has been pulled from the dragon chair three times. In his life, he went through three different stages: the Qing Dynasty, the government of the Republic of China, and socialist China. Under Bertolucci's lens, Puyi is more like a helpless child, carried around by the trend of history. From the first time he entered the Forbidden City, his fate seemed to be doomed.
"The Last Emperor" is a film that cannot be criticized with "heart". It is simply a legend in film history: it was the first film to be shot in the Forbidden City with unlimited panoramic views; In order to create a social scene in the Manchu era, more than 5,000 soldiers shaved their hair and dressed up as "braided army" ; In order to film the scene during the Cultural Revolution, Bertolucci instilled anger in the students who played the "Red Guards" every day, because the students in the late 1980s could no longer experience the feeling of the Cultural Revolution; After all, in order to restore the court life and Puyi's life more realistically, it hired Puyi's younger brother to serve as a consultant for the whole film... It can be said that this film is a masterpiece that integrates "the right time, place and people".
As the last emperor, Zunlong, even if he fell into the bottom of his life, he could find a trace of indescribable nobility in his eyebrows. For a moment, I really thought he was Puyi, and Puyi was him. Bertolucci quietly expresses his involuntary role as "emperor" in the film. Puyi, who ascended the throne at the age of three, had thousands of imperial officials kneeling in front of him, but he was only interested in the cricket in Chen Baozhen's arms. The huge bureaucratic group and a young child formed a ridiculous but real scene in this empire. In the documentary "Yuanmingyuan", there was such a description of the emperor's life: the descendants of the royal family began to study at the age of 6, no matter whether it was winter or summer, it was never uninterrupted, and there were only 5 days of vacation in a year... Such a life is for a child Undoubtedly boring. Therefore, in the film, it is not difficult for us to understand that Puyi is so fond of crickets and mice. Unfortunately, the trend of history did not feel bad for this lonely child. Because he is the emperor, he can enjoy the glory and wealth that ordinary people cannot enjoy, so he has to bear the responsibility and shame that others will never feel. Puyi didn't want to be an emperor from the beginning, but the power and glory brought by the identity of "emperor" gradually surpassed family, friendship, and love, like a long-lasting ecstasy soup. After Sun Dianying, the warlord of Dongling, who robbed the tombs of Qianlong and Cixi, was still at large and rising steadily, Puyi was completely angry. He asked the Japanese for help, he wanted to be the emperor of "Manchuria"! Puyi, who was swept away by anger, put on the emperor's robe for the third time and became a marionette in the hands of the Japanese. He wants to make a difference, wants to be the emperor with power, but how can a marionette have this qualification?
The ten years at the Fushun War Criminals Management Center in Liaoning Province were undoubtedly the most painful and tragic ten years for Puyi. For an emperor who could not even buckle his clothes or tie his shoelaces, life in prison was like the eighteenth floor of hell. The endless reporting materials pulled him into the abyss of memory again and again. It is a pity that the prison is also a rebirth of all phenomena. Just as the martial arts novels say that "people's hearts are rivers and lakes", Puyi once again experienced the warmth and coldness of human feelings: for the family slave who has been silently paying for him, he doesn't even know his basic condition; His high-ranking officials in the pseudo-Manchukuo pushed him into a predicament again and again... In the past ten years, Puyi, who has experienced the warmth and coldness of the world, gradually shed his innate superiority as a prince and grandson, and began to enjoy a The normal life of ordinary people: commuting by bicycle, looking after flowers, reading and writing... At this time, Puyi was an ordinary passerby. In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution broke out, the warden of the Fushun War Criminals Management Office was deprived of his power and criticized as a ghost and a demon. Puyi rushed forward to look at him, and kept saying to the Red Guards: "You have arrested the wrong person, he is a good person, a good man. Good teacher." The warden taught Pu Yi how to go from the altar to the ordinary person, but he did not expect the changes in the world to be so violent and sudden. Seeing the actors in the picture holding the red book and dancing the "Loyalty Dance", it was a crazy era that I have never experienced, but I have read about the bloody storms and madness and brutality of that era in countless articles.
Time flies. In 1967, Pu Yi bought a ticket to his former residence at the gate of the Forbidden City. The dragon chair is still high above, but it has long since belonged to him, and it does not belong to anyone. He told the museum director's son that he used to live here. The curator's son asked, what do you have to prove it? Pu Yi leisurely pulled out the small bamboo tube containing the crickets from the back of the dragon chair. As time passed, when the lid of the tube was opened, the crickets were still alive. When the child came back to his senses, Pu Yi had quietly disappeared with his mysterious smile. That moment was like going back in time. If there is really a choice, I think Puyi's biggest decision is: don't be born in an emperor's family.
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