CHINA’S movie censors and I would like to see director Lou Ye make some trims in his epic “Summer Palace,” but for vastly different reasons.
The bureaucrats in Beijing want to get rid of the sex and full-frontial nudity and scenes of cops beating protesters in Tiananmen Square. I would keep all that but cut out some of the flab in the second half of the 140-minute drama.
That said, I still must recommend “Summer Palace,” especially for the remarkably strong performance by Hao Lei as Yu Hong, the daughter of a shopkeeper in the provinces.
She goes to college in Beijing in 1988 and embarks on a stormy love affair with a handsome fellow student (Guo Xiaodong).
The Tiananmen scenes come in the middle, and they serve to divide “Summer Palace” into two films.
The first is more than satisfying as it depicts Yu’s ill-fated romance, which ends when she abruptly quits school. The sex scenes include China’s first male and female full-frontal nudity.
The second half, which is in need of judicious editing, is told largely in montage and follows the subsequent lives of the two ex-lovers and fellow students, some of whom end up in Berlin.
For Yu, it is a time of unsatisfying sexual experimentation.
In addition to realistic performances, “Summer Palace” features gritty, hand-held camerawork by Hua Qing and a musical soundtrack that includes American pop.
Lou – one of China’s most talented directors (I especially like “Suzhou River,” his 2000 riff on Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”) – got into big trouble when “Summer Palace” screened in competition at Cannes without first getting approval from censors back home.
As a result, Lou has been banned from making films in China for five years – the price some must pay for artistic freedom.
SUMMER PALACE
Beijing laid bare.
In Mandaran and German, with English subtitles. Not rated (sex, nudity, violence). At Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.