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''Twin Bracelets'' is a film produced in 1990 by Cosmopolitan Film Productions Co., a Hong Kong-based company that forms part of the film production conglomerate run by the Shaw brothers who are the owners of the Shaw Brothers Studio.〔Cf. the article on Yu-shan Huang in: U.S.-China Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1993, p.22.〕 S.L.Wei notes that "Twin Bracelets was shown at international film festivals."〔S. Louisa Wei, "Women’s Trajectories in Chinese and Japanese Cinemas," in: Kate E. Taylor (ed.), Dekalog 4: On East Asian Filmmakers. Brighton UK (Wallflower Press) 2011, p.29.〕 It has "won the 1992 San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Award for Best Feature."〔Marc Siegel, "Spilling Out onto Castro Street," in: Jump Cut, No. 41, May 1997, p.135.〕 John Charles called Twin Bracelets "(a) somber, engrossing drama" that is "marred only by the inevitability of its narrative."〔John Charles, The Hong Kong Filmography, 1977-1997: a complete reference of 1,100 films produced by British Hong Kong studios. Jefferson, NC (McFarland) 2000, p.326〕 The film has been labeled a ‘lesbian’ film, but also a ‘feminist’ film. Some critics have also focused on what they took to be its ethnological aspects. Such aspects do indeed form the background of Zhaohuan Lu’s short story ‘The Twin Bracelets’ (1986) which served as the basis of the film script written by the film director, Yu-shan Huang.〔See: Fran Martin, Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Culture and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary. Durham NC (Duke University Press) 2010, p.244. - Sara Friedman notes that the writer is a "Hui’an native" and that the story first appeared in the journal Fujian wenxue (Fujian Literature). See: Sara Friedman, Intimate Politics: Marriage, the Market and State Power in Southeastern China. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Asia Center) 2006, p.289; p.314. – The author of the short story graduated in 1966 from Fujian Teachers’ College (Dept. of Chinese Language and Literature). For more information on Lu Zhaohuan see: http://www.3739.net/488545.htm .〕 Huang Yushan who initially worked for Central Motion Picture Company (CMPC) and for the Shaw Bros. is a director who has made a choice in favor of independent film. In her life and work she is attached to feminism. According to Bérénice Reynaud, she is "one of the rare women to work in the Taiwanese film industry."〔Bérénice Reynaud, "Créteil’s ‘Oriental Films’ Section," in: Screen, Vol. 32, No. 4, 1991, p.442. – B. Reynaud works at the Calif. Institute of the Arts, "holding a joint appointment in the School of Film/Video and the School of Critical Studies."〕 Prof Lai has called Yu-shan Huang "Taiwan's major feminist director."〔Lai Shen-chon (= Hsien-tsong Lai; Lai Xianzong), "A Glow of Art That Transcends the Floating World." [Alternative translation of the title of this essay: The Glory of Transcendent Art; the article is partly quoted in: Lin-zhen Wang (ed.), Chinese Women’s Cinema. Transnational Contexts. New York (Columbia University Press) 2011. - The Chinese version Chāoyuè fúshì de yìshù guānghuá was printed in: The Liberty Times; 3 Nov. 2005. - Also online: http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2005/new/nov/3/life/article-1.htm)〕 S.L. Wei sees Huang as "an important voice in Taiwanese women's cinema. The fact that her film Twin Bracelets received relatively much attention "enabled Huang to have in-depth discussions with American independent filmmakers and feminist directors. From then on she began to push consciously forward [with] films about women."〔S. Louisa Wei, ibidem.〕 ==A feminist movie== Twin Bracelets was shot in Hui An, a remote coastal village of Fujian (a southern province of the People’s Republic of China).〔John Charles, ibidem.〕 The film is a stark denunciation of the culturally specific ‘machismo’ of Chinese men, as observed in a traditional coastal village. Juxtaposed to it, we find poetic scenes that portray female tenderness, as found in girls and young women who have not yet succumbed to the so-called realities of life. The two female protagonists, Hsiu and Hui-hua, have not yet surrendered their dreams when we observe them in the initial sequences of the film. But it is clear that they cannot escape the pressures of village society. Whatever their subjective longings, how can they turn a blind eyes to the expectations of their next of kin that are anchored in tradition? We see that these expectations are in turn influenced by social customs and by fear of gossip among neighbors. But also by the spontaneous comprehension that social roles have to be accepted if families want to make ends meet and if the local economy of a fishing village is to function ‘as it always did.’ When Hui-hua succumbs to the expectations of her family that, at her age, she should marry and obey her husband, Xiu commits suicide. The one surrenders to the ‘force of circumstances’ – the others finds only a self-destructive way out. Yet this act expresses her rebellion, her protest and revolt, and it lays bare the source of the female alliance of hope and the alternative vision it embodied. Instead of wife-beating, it was caresses that these young human beings longed for when they made their initial vow to each other that they would never marry. They had sensed the injustice enshrined in the old game of master and slave, they did not want words and deeds that boss and command and leave no alternative. They desired human respect, equality, careful awareness of each other's needs. And for a short time, enabled by their affection for each other, they lived like that, turning to each other, experiencing the secluded, intimate freedom of a human relationship that was genuine and reciprocal in their acceptance of each other's dignity. It was like this that exploitation could give way to cooperation, rule to freedom. It embodies, as a relationship of merely two human beings, an entire vision of how humans could live together. When the film turns to the intimate scenes that show the closeness of these young women who comprehend their relationship in a traditional way, by seeing themselves as ‘sister-spouses,’ we begin to understand their affection for each other as the support that is necessary to resist the wrong, antiquated, patriarchal social relations that dominate village society. It is the affectionate bond between them that gives them strength to resist.〔When Hui-hua is finally required to accept submission to a husband, "the only way out for her is to run home to mother, who promptly condemns her action. The only person Hui-ha can call on for a spiritual boost and moral strength is her sister-spouse, Hsiu." (U.S.-China Review, Vol, 17, No. 3, 1993, p.22).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Twin Bracelets」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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