Gender and Cinema: Speaking Through Images of Women

Introduction

What is the relationship between gender and cinema? And how can we explore this question productively so that new meanings emerge to enrich our viewing experience and general knowledge about the world? My questions are inspired by Denise Riley's provocative book Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of 'Women' in History (1988). Most will immediately recognize the reference to the famous dialogue in Othello between Desdemona and Iago where the former asks the latter: "Am I that Name, Iago?" However, Desdemona’s gesture here is foremost rhetorical, for her response to Iago's follow-up question shows that the fair lady harbors some misgivings: "Such as she says my lord did say I was." (Shakespeare, Act IV, Scene II, 1622). Riley actually quotes the dialogue at the beginning of her first chapter to indicate that she shares Desdemona's distrust: Can one name adequately capture the multiplicity, complexity, and subtle nuances of female subjectivity? In the context of Riley's study, that name is "woman," a historical category that is "discursively constructed" and thus "a volatile collectivity in which female persons can be very differently positioned" (1988: 2). Given that categories of gender, and by extension our understanding of sexuality, have shifted or broadened in meanings over the centuries, what are the implications of Riley's claim for cinema? How do images of women, especially, speak to the spectator? Is the spectator positioned as masculine/feminine or male/female? Last, but not least, is femininity presented in a particular way through the cinematic lenses?

These questions immediately come to mind after watching Xie Fei's Women from the Scented Lake (1992), Girl from Hunan (1986), Ngyen Thanh Van's Sand Life (1999), and Vilsoni Hereniko's Pear ta ma'on maf / The Land has Eyes (2004). Besides representing some of the best cinematic productions from China, Vietnam, and Pacific Islands respectively, these four films have another notable thing in common: storylines that revolve around the trials and tribulations of female protagonists. In Women from the Scented Lake, Xiang Ersao, a competent, resolute woman in her forties successfully manages the family business, producing sesame oil, in a small village somewhere in central China. Her husband is a good-for-nothing, heavy-drinking wife-beater, and she has an epileptic son for whom she ironically has to buy a wife – the "female destiny" she herself did not escape. In Girl from Hunan, we witness the coming-of-age of Xiaoxiao, a twelve-year-old child bride who is sold to a land-owning farming family with a two-year- old boy, Chunguan, whom she initially serves as a caretaker-cum-sister but later marries when he is sixteen. In Sand Life, two women demonstrate compassion and sacrifice for the happiness of their shared husband. After the war ends in 1979, Canh, a Communist cadre, leaves behind his second wife Tam and their daughter Gianh in the North, where he has fought for a decade, in order to be reunited with his first wife, Thoa, in the South. But the long separation proves an insurmountable barrier as the couple attempts to rekindle passion, a situation that worsens with the unexpected appearance of Gianh, followed by her mother. Finally, The Land has Eyes is the story of Viki, a teenage girl from Rotuma, an island 300 miles off Fiji, who fearlessly, and in the spirit of a legendary female warrior, avenges the legal and social injustice that indirectly drove her father to death and then later embarks on a scholarship to study in Fiji. In these four films, it is perhaps the sympathetic portrayal of female characters that has arguably contributed to their critical acclaim at home and abroad. But what exactly is the appeal of such "images of women" and what do we make of one film critic's claim that "whenever we look at painted, drawn, sculpted or photographed images of women, it is important for us to remind ourselves that images of women have traditionally been the province and property of men"? (Kuhn 1985:10)

The Appeal of "Woman's Film"

It has become something of a truism to say that in the realm of aesthetic representation, men have always expressed themselves through images of women, and it should be obvious that cinema constitutes no exception. Indeed, this is hardly surprising, given that most cultures operate within a patriarchal social economy that privileges male access to education and artistic creation. Feminist film critics, however, have added a psychoanalytical dimension to this explanation by focusing on the dynamics between "Self" and "Other," divided along the axis of heterosexual normativity and repression of desires. This is the position taken by Laura Mulvey, who maintains that, "in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female" (1989:19). In essence, this theory positions men as "viewers" and women as "objects to be looked at." However, even Mulvey herself found this position hard to maintain, particularly with regard to the genre of melodrama, which typically provides a feminine point of identification for the viewer (1989:31). As she points out, melodrama's affective quality is reminiscent of Euripides' tragedies which are "probing the pent-up emotions, bitterness and disillusion well known to women" (1989:39).

Women from the Scented Lake, Girl From Hunan, Sand Life and The Land has Eyes persuasively speak to this type of melodrama or, more specifically, resonate within the classic Hollywood tradition of the "woman's film." Often used interchangeably with "woman's picture," this genre is associated with others, such as film noir and the maternal melodrama, all of which typically portray a strong, sexual heroine or ostensibly target female spectators (Erens, 1990: XXI, Doane 1987:3). In the US, the "woman's film" became hugely popular in the 40s and 50s when the family melodrama was at an all-time high (Elsaesser 1996:50). Famous Hollywood directors exploring this type of film include Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcook, who visually dramatize the hopes and disappointments of female characters who dare to defy social conventions, despite the price they have to pay. Interestingly, in the early 90s, when Chinese films burst onto the international scene, Zhang Yimou, one of China's most celebrated contemporary directors, successfully employed this storyline. Judou (1990), Raise the Red Lanterns (1991), and Qiuju goes to Court (1992) all center on a woman whose belief in her right to follow her own desires – though not necessarily sexual - threatens to disrupt the patriarchal order. The heroines all suffer tragically: setting herself and her dwellings on fire (Judou), giving into jealousy, betrayal, and insanity (Red Lantern), or submitting to patriarchal guilt, scorn, and scrutiny (Qiuju). Clearly, this particular genre of "woman's film" and, by extension melodrama itself, has not lost its fascination for today's filmmakers or audiences. As a matter of fact, as Mary Ann Doane observes, "there is something extremely compelling about women's films – with their constantly recurring figures of the unwed mothers, the waiting wife, the abandoned mistress, the frightened newlywed or the anguished mother" (Doane 1987:3).

There are, of course, obvious cultural and historical differences between "woman's films" from China, those made in Hollywood in the early 1940s, and, for that matter, those made in other countries at other times. To begin with, while all images of women are embedded within the patriarchal family structure, Hollywood emphasizes the importance of the nuclear family and one social role to the exclusion of others. Moreover, as Doane's list shows, these roles are primarily in reference to heterosexual relationships that position men as husbands and/or lovers. In contrast, it is not uncommon to find a combination or conflict of various social roles for women in non-Western films, probably because kinship relations and the extended family are valued equally, if not more, in other cultures. Xiang Ersao, from Women from the Scented Lake, is not only the abandoned mistress but also the anguished mother, while Huanhuan, her daughter-in-law, is the frightened newlywed as well as an abandoned "lover." Xiaoxiao from Girl from Hunan gradually matures from a frightened newlywed "teenager" to the waiting wife and unwed mother, as she becomes pregnant by another man before her intended marriage to Chunguan is consummated. In Sand Life, both Thoa and Tam are married to Canh, and there is no mistress in the film. Instead, the two women oscillate between the figures of waiting and abandoned wives. In the end, however, we are left with the image of two anguished "female kin," as they - in the name of sisterhood and female compassion - voluntarily give up the man they have waited for. In The Land has Eyes, the female protagonist is a teenage girl, so none of the female figures on Doane's list quite fits. Even though the legendary female warrior is a mature woman, she is an abandoned "sister" who is sexually abused by her own brother. In that sense, she could be seen as an unwed mother, however, she is not anguished but rather "revengeful"

Melodrama as Social Commentary

In part, the differences we see in "woman's films" from China, Vietnam, and the Pacific Islands are due to culturally specific cinematic productions of melodrama. As Wimal Dissanayake points out, "despite sharing some broad features," Sinhalese melodrama is quite different from its Cantonese, Indonesian or Japanese counterparts because of particular cultural and historical constellations (2003:176). A major difference in films of Asian melodrama is the role assigned to "myth, ritual, religious practices and ceremonies" in establishing and resolving the dramatic conflict (Dissanayke 1993:3). Interestingly, this applies more to The Land has Eyes than to the Chinese or Vietnamese films under discussion. The Land has Eyes is the first Pacific Islands' film made by a Rotuman filmmaker, shot locally with an entirely Rotuman cast, and it makes powerful use of the ritual practice of "clowning" at weddings or other ceremonies. According to Vilsoni Hereniko, screenwriter, director and co-producer of the film, the role of the clown is typically performed by women past childbearing age who are usually relatives on the bride's side (1995). After Viki's father is wrongly accused of stealing from his neighbor and ordered to pay a huge fine, the family's financial situation deteriorates and, with it, its perceived social position in the village. When an older, female relative appears at Viki's home to borrow not only money but also the family's precious ceremonial staff she intends to use for her clowning act at a wedding, Viki's parents don't hesitate. Viki, however, is upset at what she sees as a lack of sympathy and compassion for her family's impoverished situation. Later on, when she is summoned for her scholarship interview by the district officer, she is armed with her family's ceremonial staff and manages not only to expose the evil doings of the court translator but also to convince the village chiefs that she is the best candidate for the scholarship. In the three Asian film, the absence of rituals, myth, and religion is compensated for by the themes of female suffering for the sake of harmony within the family unit, and by the juxtaposition of traditional and modern values, all of which are considered defining features of Asian melodrama (Dissanayake 1993:4-5). Interestingly, more recent studies on Asian action cinema, particularly the films of John Woo, have begun to make a case for "male melodrama," a genre that has not yet been discussed within the Western context (Gates 2001).

However, despite increased references to non-Western cinematic forms of melodrama, the word itself does not translate easily into other languages (Berry 2003:185). According to Hereniko, none of the languages from the Pacific Islands has an actual word for melodrama. 1 And whatever Asian expressions are in current circulation must be considered recent inventions that do not convey the original meaning derived from the Greek word for song (melos) and referring to a musical stage play (Dissanayake 1993:3). But that is certainly not to say that the "melodramatic imagination" (Brooks 1985) is a new experience for non-Western cultures. On the contrary, most have long oral and dramatic traditions that are rich with characteristics widely accepted as definitive of modern melodrama: "sensationalism, emotional intensity, hyperbole, strong action, violence, rhetorical excesses, moral polarities, brutal villainy and its ultimate elimination, and the triumph of good" (Dissanayake 1993:1). Secondly, despite the criticism that feudal values and patriarchal practices are more resilient in non-Western cultures, many have artistic traditions that deplore social injustice and encourage subversive readings. This seems to support a broader understanding of melodrama as a form of expression that "disrupts the realism of a text to allow for subversive and alternative meanings to surface and be read" (Gates 2001:61). Finally, if it can be said that emotional expression in non-Western cultures has been conditioned by a high degree of social or political repression, then melodramatic expression would seen to be natural outlet. As Peter Brooks states, "melodrama refuses repression, or rather, repeatedly strives for moments where repression is broken through, to the physical and verbal staging of the essential" (1994:19). This reinforces Mulvey's assertion that melodrama's "ideological function [lies] in working certain contradictions through to the surface and re-presenting them in an aesthetic form" (1989:43).

In this regard, melodrama, and by extension "woman's film" and "images of women," are in fact a great deal more complex than first meets the eye, and the recent revival of scholarly interest in melodrama thus confirms the view of earlier feminist film critics that the representation of sexual difference so typical of this genre provides an excellent site for ideological critique (Gledhill 1987). In the words of Pam Cook, melodramatic cinema and the "woman's film" not only foreground a female perspective, but also typically "negotiate between female desire and its containment …often producing an excess which threatens to deviate from the intended route" (Cook 1983:14). Operating very much like deconstructive cinema, "woman's films" hold the potential to unravel the social injustice of feminine suffering, the double standards of sexist societies, and the traditional forces constraining female desire. In the remaining part of this essay, I would like to argue that while these concerns are evident in Women from the Scented Lake, Girl from Human, Sand Life and The Land has Eyes, the ideological critique is not couched in feminist terms but rather in the language of "social commentary." One obvious reason is that feminism is a relatively modern and Western-inspired concept for most cultures in Asia and the Pacific Islands. This implies, along the lines of traditional aesthetics, that the images of women are meant to take on a broader allegorical function, i.e. they "stand in" for the larger "human" or "collective" sufferings of a people. In the context of our four films, this "collective suffering" is intimately tied to issues of modernity, i.e. the juxtaposition and often perceived incompatibility of East/West, traditional/modern, and stability/disruption.

Female Suffering as Economic Survival

The story of Xiang Ersao from Women from the Scented Lake can be read as an allegory for China's ideological seduction by market-economy and its promise for a "better life." Xiang Ersao runs the family's sesame oil business competently and even attracts Japanese investment that brings fame and glory to her village. But her financial success and public image as a strong woman are constantly undermined by the less glamorous aspects of her domestic life: Her husband is a good-for-nothing drunk and she single-handedly takes care of the household and her two children – a twenty-year-old epileptic son, Dunzi, who needs constant supervision, and her ten-year-old daughter who, unbeknownst to her husband, is the product of her illicit affair with her business associate. On the surface, things move along smoothly. After a visit to the village, the Japanese investor decides to go into business with Xiang Ersao and invites her to the city to finalize the deal. At around the same time, Xiang Ersao begins to realize that her new purchasing power could solve her constant worry about Dunzi's future, and so she engages a matchmaker to find a suitable girl. Ironically, however, when presented with a competent and ambitious girl from a neighboring village, who is willing to marry Dunzi despite his epilepsy because she sees in Xiang Ersao a role model, the latter rejects her for fear of not being able to control her. Instead, she sets her eyes on Huanhuan, a pretty and good-natured girl from the same village whose family is poor. Huanhuan is in love with a young man who works for Xiang Ersao, but she eventually agrees to marry Dunzi in order to alleviate her parents' financial burden and her own misery at having been abandoned by her lover. What Huanhuan doesn't know, of course, is that Xiang Ersao is responsible for the young man's disappearance, having lured him away with a lucrative business offer. The extensive wedding ceremony serves to cement Xiang Ersao's public reputation as a "woman who has it all."

At this peak of her economic power, however, Xiang Ersao's private life takes a turn for the worse. On her trip to the city, she learns that her Japanese investor, a modern, independent, business woman, is not married but has a "partner" whom she occasionally meets for romantic purposes. This discovery seems to fuel Xiang Ersao's growing desire to come clean with her husband, not at least because, with Huanhuan now sharing the family's living quarters, it is becoming increasingly difficult for her to keep her affair secret. But her hopes are quickly dashed by her lover's sudden decision to end the relationship on account of it "having gone on for too long" and the fact that they are now middle age. Devastated by this news, which is compounded by the gradual realization that her son's marriage is a disaster, Xiang Ersao plunges into depression and loses interest in her business and family. When Huanhuan runs away to escape the physical attacks of a husband who "can't be a man," and Xiang Ersao's husband starts to claim his conjugal rights in brutal fashion, her suffering for the sake of family harmony seems to have come full circle. Ironically, when she finally agrees to allow her daughter-in-law the divorce, which would set her free from the patriarchal cycle of female suffering, she is made painfully aware of her own complicity. After confessing to Huanhuan that, as a teenager, she was married off against her will to an incompetent, older husband and almost committed suicide over it, she promises to make up everything to Huanhuan by finding her a "good man" and even to pay for her new dowry. Breaking down in tears, however, Huanhuan can only reply: "But who would want me now?" These words, of course, also haunt Xiang Ersao, as the camera closes in on the images of these two women sitting by the lake where Xiang Ersao once thought about drowning herself. In the end, financial success appears to be no guarantee of emotional stability and family harmony, despite the sacrifices to achieve it.

In Girl From Human, female suffering is not a central concern, although it is portrayed at some length. The context is an "age-old" village tradition in which a female adulterer, caught with her lover in an act of sexual passion, is stripped naked, handcuffed, and publicly drowned in the river. This occurs right after Xiaoxiao discovers that she is pregnant by Huagou, a farmhand working for her in-laws. When she begs him to elope with her in order to escape a similar fate, he reacts with hesitation and fear, quite to the surprise and indignation of Xiaoxiao. One morning Huagou disappears, leaving Xiaoxiao desperately trying various methods to stop her pregnancy. But all is in vain, and she finally decides to run away. They soon find her and, upon discovering Xiaoxiao's illicit pregnancy, her mother-in-law locks her up. Various options are discussed to dispose of her, but it soon becomes clear that neither Chunguan, her husband, nor her own family can bear to inflict such a harsh punishment. When Xiaoxiao delivers a healthy baby-boy, all previous concerns of possible scandal and shame instantly dissolve and her status within the family is quickly re-established. The final segment of the film shows Chunguan, now aged sixteen or so, returning to the village from town where he attends high school. He is teased by female classmates who have heard of his "child bride" whom he is to marry soon. Arriving at his family compound, he overhears Xiaoxiao and her mother-in-law talking about getting ready to receive a child bride for Xiaoxiao's illegitimate two-year-old boy. Thus begins a new cycle.

The ending of Girl from Hunan and Xiaoxiao's rehabilitation seem to suggest that the film's subject matter, i.e. the child bride system, is perhaps not as oppressive or cruel as has been suggested elsewhere. The custom refers to a widespread practice in the countryside where young girls from very poor families are sold to richer, land-owning ones in order to help their own families to survive financially. Since the child brides are usually much older than their husbands, usually still infants, their position in their in-laws' households is that of a servant-cum-caretaker until the boy reaches the age of sixteen or older and the marriage is consummated. Girl from Hunan is based on a short story by Shen Congwen, and the happy ending reflects the "humanistic touch" for which his writing is celebrated for. In contrast, "The Child Bride," another story on the same subject but written by well known female writer Xiao Hong, downright condemns the practice as exploitative, abusive, and extremely cruel (Goldblatt 1988). Girl from Hunan certainly does not seem to be so critical, but to assume that the film embraces the child bride system would be a mistake, as the film is intended as a social commentary. To begin with, the image of Xiaoxiao does not fit that of a typical child bride, a submissive and passive daughter-in-law with no desires or a mind of her own. Xiaoxiao is every inch the curious, passionate, if innocent girl who, despite her lack of formal education, is susceptible to the lures of modern life and values, especially when it concerns women. The setting of the story, the early 1920s, is a time when China was undergoing rapid changes in the public sphere and in women's education in particular. The events that, in some sense, anticipate and precipitate Xiaoxiao's illicit affair with Huaguo are intimately related to adult conversations about, and later visual encounter with, "co-ed girls" who enjoy freedoms Xiaooxiao has hitherto never heard of. However, when her husband's grandfather teases her, Xiaoxiao vehemently denies that she is envious and acts every bit the submissive servant and traditional girl. But the talk of liberated co-ed girls who "act and do as they want" make a deep impression on Xiaoxiao, and when Huagou begins to seduce her with erotic songs and romantic flirtations, she is unable to resist the temptation – after all she is a sixteen-year-old girl "naturally" discovering her female susceptibility to Huagou's irresistible sexual appeal. The "age-old village tradition," of course, is further indication that patriarchal customs cannot control sexual drives. Thus, by staging sexual transgression as a form of human weakness, Xiaoxiao's erotic interlude in Girl from Hunan clearly challenges the overall utilitarian basis of the child bride system and its implied rationalization of human nature.

Female Suffering as Historical Injustice

The theme of female suffering for the sake of family harmony is taken to a higher level in Sand Life, where each of the two wives willingly abandons her own chance at happiness so that the husband can be reunited with the "other" woman. The final scenes show how Thoa and Canh accompany the second wife and daughter, Tam and Gianh, to the train station. Tam has asked to be "allowed" to go home because she cannot tolerate the situation of "sharing" her husband any longer. Ironically, however, Thoa isn't in love with her husband anymore but unfortunately, has broken off her love affair with Huy, her comrade-in-arms and neighbor in the village, whose unexpected union with her pregnant neighbor Hao is triggered by events related to the historical injustice of the Vietnam war.

The film begins with an emotional farewell scene between Tam and Canh, accompanied by their daughter Gianh, as he returns to his home village in the South. Tam's last words to Canh are instructions not to rush and break the news of her existence to Thoa for fear she might not be able to accept the new reality. Canh agrees with this approach and, after his arrival, he and Thoa both attempt to rekindle their former passion. It quickly becomes obvious, however, that Thoa feels more of an obligation to please him than real passion, while Canh does his best to be nice to Thoa and resume "business as usual." What he doesn't know, of course, is that shortly before his arrival, Thoa has broken off her love affair with Huy because she is still a married woman and waiting for her husband's return from the North. Huy's whole family was killed during the war, and he has suffered serious injuries and the loss of one leg. But he is hopelessly in love with Thoa, and no amount of rejection or dissuasion will daunt him. Even the incessant flirtatious advances from Thoa's neighbor Hao, who has lost both of her legs, cannot console Huy's broken heart. One evening, in a women's heart-to-heart conversation, Thoa urges Hao to start a family while still young. Following this advice, Hao makes another proposition to Huy, only to receive another rejection. In humiliation, a drunken Hao ends up sleeping with the richest man in the village and becomes pregnant. When the news reaches the village bureaucrats, an ugly public investigation starts and is only put to a halt when Huy unexpectedly comes to Hao's rescue by "confessing" his paternity. Apparently, he has come to terms with the fact that Thoa will never leave her husband and marry a cripple.

Before Canh has a chance to tell Thoa about his second family in the North, Ginah runs away from home in search of her father. When she shows up in the South, and later her mother, both are kindly taken in by Thoa who treats them like long-lost kin. There is no antagonism between the two wives, only mutual respect and female compassion for each other's plight. Nevertheless, Tam is not given much opportunities to spend time alone with Canh and their daughter. Instead, Thoa wants Tam to lie next to her in bed, since both need to get to know each other better. Not daring to refuse the request, Tam's status within the family is thus sealed as a deferential sister-cum-companion to Thoa, who herself has no desire to sleep with Canh. Yet, for the younger Tam, who is still in love with Canh, this situation becomes unbearable and she finally asks Thoa for permission to return to the North with her daughter. Meanwhile, in an unexpected encounter with Huy, Canh has learned about his former affair and deeply regrets not having been told earlier. He even accuses Huy of being a coward for not confessing the affair sooner. Canh is visibly in anguish over the entire series of misfortunes. He didn't want to hurt Thoa's feelings, but he loves Tam as much, if not more, than his first wife.

Although Thoa also realizes this sad truth, she is aware that there is now little alternative as Huy will marry Hao, and therefore does not try to persuade Tam to stay. But when she secretly observes the passionate good-bye scene between Tam and Canh, she realizes that she cannot hold him back and so decides to send the two off together. Seconds before the train leaves, she pushes him on the moving wagon, squeezes a ticket into his hands, and tearfully waves him good-bye. An speechless and bewildered Canh stares at his ticket and then slowly but happily makes his way through the compartment to locate Gianh and Tam, who is at first shocked, then elated, but finally distressed over the unexpected change of events. The final scene shows the train moving slowly through the sandy landscape of Quang Binh province, with a small figure watching as the train moves further North. The following close-up shows that it is Canh, motionless and with tears rolling down his face. This unexpected conclusion stands perhaps as the best visual testimony to the film's message that in times of crisis, such as war, life is unpredictable and fragile, like the region of Quang Binh, where sand dunes account for 5.9% of the total area and the dry season brings dangerous sandstorms. In the final analysis, "Sand Life" allegorizes the suffering and sacrifice made by the Vietnamese both in the war and after.

In The Land Has Eyes, the female warrior, Tafate'masian, said to be the first human being to have lived on the island of Rotuma, experiences female suffering in the sense of sexual abuse and social isolation. The film begins with a narrative voice-over telling of a sea voyage involving seven brothers and their sister. During the trip, the eldest brother rapes the sister, and although it is clear that the others do not approve of this evil act, nobody intervenes. On the contrary, due to this shame, they abandon the sister on the then uninhabited island of Rotuma. Unexpectedly, having to fend for herself on a deserted island emboldens rather than frightens Tafate'masian, a name that translates into "the light shining on my path." After she gives birth to her child all by herself, Tafate'masian takes a vow that future generations of Rotuman women will perpetuate her warrior spirit and mana. The next scene shifts to 1960s Rotuma and Hapati, with Viki's father encouraging his daughter to become as strong as the island's founding mother.

Viki is a fourteen-year-old girl, the youngest of three children, something of a tomboy and the top student in her class. Whenever she experiences instances of social injustice or gender discrimination, for instance, when she wants her mother to teach her how to weave and the latter declines to do so because Viki is not a typical girl, or when her father's health deteriorates due to the unjust court sentence, she expresses her frustration by visualizing herself as the legendary female warrior who is not afraid of anything because, as her father tells her: "The land has eyes and teeth, and knows the truth." According to director and screenwriter Vilsoni Hereniko, this proverb embodies a Rotuman belief in "supernatural" justice, particularly under circumstances when Western courts fail to punish evildoers. Calling upon the mythical powers and spirit of Tafate'masian, Rotumans believe that justice will prevail in the end, and the film relies on this indigenous sense of law and order for its dramatic effect. The spirit of Tafate'masian appears in the crucial scene in which Viki is interviewed for her scholarship to Fiji. Poto, the court translator, is also present but when he again tries to manipulate the outcome by mistranslating, Viki is able to invoke the mythical presence of Tafate'masian to expose Poto's evil. Dramatically, this is done by staging a strong wind, the manifestation of Tafate'masian, which literally throws Poto off his feet. Viki transforms into the image of Tafate'masian, wielding her powerful ceremonial staff over Poto. Defeated and unconscious, he is carried out of the courtroom while Viki is left to explain to the bewildered judge the power of indigenous law. Needless to say, Viki's conviction so impresses the council of chiefs and the judge that she is recommended for the scholarship.

The power of Rotuman women to triumph over patriarchal values and social injustice is further emphasized by the ceremonial act of clowning. Mata, who is a close relative of Viki's family, performs the clown at a wedding in the village and, to the amusement of the village, decides to make the chief kneel in front of her. This is of course a subversive but entirely legitimate act within the clowning ritual. However, when she approaches Poto to do the same, he resists and even pushes Mata onto the floor. This incivility serves to foreshadow his eventual demise, for Mata swiftly jumps on her motorcycle and chases Poto around the ceremonial grounds until he flees with his family from the scene. Like Koroa, the arrogant and mean-spirited neighbor who accused Hapati of stealing his coconuts, Poto has no time for the traditional way of life. The former has just returned from Australia and wants to evict Viki's family because he finds them "annoying," presumably because they are too traditional and poor for his taste. Indeed, they still live in a single-storey, thatched house, and speak the native tongue. Furthermore, Hapati, much to his wife's dismay, is a pagan or what he considers "a proud Rotuman," instead of a Christian like the rest of the village. Koroa, in contrast, is the embodiment of modern life: he speaks English with his son, who is half-Australian; he works in the hospital, he is about to build the first two-storey building in the island, and he eats modern food, i.e. canned tuna with white bread versus the traditional diet of fresh fish, coconuts, and bananas. When Poto, a close friend of Koroa's, misinterprets during the court-hearing in order to get Hapati convicted of stealing, Viki feels the full impact of historical injustice brought to the Pacific Islands by colonization. Although today the position of the district officer or judge is performed by either a Fijian or a Rotuman, before independence in 1970, that office was often performed by a white man who did not speak the native language and therefore had to rely on translators. While Viki is not present at the hearing, she overhears the mistranslation from outside the window of the courtroom. Unable to defend himself in English, Hapati is left with no other choice but to accept the sentence: a ten pound fine, a considerable amount of money for a poor family. On their way home, Viki reveals to her father what she overheard and urges him to go back and tell the truth. But Hapati is tired, as a matter of fact, he is physically suffering from TB, and he merely repeats to Viki an age-old Rotuman proverb that "the land has eyes and teeth and knows the truth."

"Woman"as a Point of Identification

Of all four films under discussion, The Land has Eyes is perhaps the best example of the power and persuasion inherent in images of women that are made to speak on behalf of a male "Self" or larger collective. According to Vilsoni Hereniko, the film reflects his own experience growing up as the youngest of eleven children in Rotuma in the 60s. He, too, learned about Rotuma's founding myth from his father, who was also wrongly accused of stealing and suffered a similar plight of mistranslation and premature death. Like Viki, Hereniko helped the family raise the money to pay off the fine by making beautiful feathered fans. He also won a scholarship to Fiji, which eventually enabled him to move to England for his college education. Hereniko also had a close relationship with his father, who encouraged him to study hard and make more of his life. In The Land has Eyes, it is noticeably Hapati, and not his wife, who is closer to Viki and is her strongest supporter. When Viki informs her mother that she wants to go to Fiji to continue her studies, she responds with the question: "What if you get pregnant?" Viki's ambition may well be justified in terms of her academic achievement, but according to Rotuma's custom of seniority, her elder brother or sister should leave the islands first, and, not surprisingly, there are scenes of sibling rivalry when Hanisi learns about the scholarship. Hanisi, however, doesn't have the academic competence and she is being groomed by her mother to replace her in the domestic setting. Compared to Viki, who follows into the footsteps of Tafate'masian, the strong woman, Hanisi represents the traditional, submissive woman.

Although the Chinese and Vietnamese films are not autobiographical like The Land has Eyes, it is still possible to maintain that the images of women presented in the three Asian films also provide points of identification for the male directors. Reportedly, Nguyen Thanh Van became "obsessed" with the tragic conclusion of Sand Life, which he read in 1991 when he came across the award-winning short story by Huu Phuong. The choice of Quang Binh province, where Sand Life was shot, is certainly not random, as it is the hometown of both author, Huu Phuong, and screenwriter, Nguyen Quang Lap. During the Vietnam war, the area was devastated by bombing, and many cast members were recruited from official rolls of war victims, including the actress who plays Hao, the woman in Sand Life who also lost both of her legs during the conflict. In addition, as much as possible, homes of former victims and soldiers were used for the set to give the film a feel of the "real." In that sense, Sand Life is very much a story about their lives. No wonder that the film has been well received by Vietnamese audiences who strongly identify with the message. According to Huynh Thuy Chau, a student at Ho Chi Minh University, "films like Doi Cat [Sand Life] show the suffering of our people [and] mean so much more to us than films which are just hymns to the war" (Thomas 2001).

Speaking through images of women or a "feminine voice" has always been a male prerogative in Chinese aesthetic tradition (Mair 2001). While Women from the Scented Lake and Girl from Hunan may not contain autobiographical references to Xie Fei, the themes of female sacrifice and suffering resonate in an interesting way with the director's life. In a series of interviews, in which he talks about his philosophy in work and life, Xie Fei candidly admits that teaching film was not a voluntary choice but an "accident of history." His chance of achieving the sort of international fame now enjoyed by the younger generation of Chinese directors, such as Zhang Yimou or Chen Kaige, was cut short by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1965. So, instead of embarking on directing, a career for which he was trained at the Beijing Film Academy, he was sent to the countryside and, at the end of this period, he returned to his alma mater to work as a teacher because that was what the country needed. Although Xie Fei clearly enjoys his teaching career, which has been very successful - in fact, he has simultaneously been able to establish a name for himself as an accomplished director of art-house films - his narrative account of his professional path is suffused with a sense of sacrifice for the sake of the nation. Nevertheless, he has been able to draw on his "rich experience" in the countryside, and Women from the Scented Lake was in fact shot in the village where he lived for four years during the Cultural Revolution. Finally, teaching film in addition to making movies every other year has allowed Xie Fei to concentrate on art-house movies and escape the pressures of commercial cinema, something which he dislikes and to which directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige had to submit.

With increased opportunities for women to enter the film industry over the past two decades, we have begun to see images of women that seek to move beyond familiar patriarchal stereotypes of "female victimization." These newer images have helped to shape the concept of "woman's cinema" that offer more of a feminist or female-centered perspective than that of many "woman's films." Most notably, images of female suffering are often replaced with more positive ones that show female pleasure, agency, and self-determination in and for itself rather than in relationship to, or for the sake of, fathers, husbands, or sons. Two remarkable examples of "woman's cinema" from Asia are Gubra (2006) by Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad and Love for Share (2006) by Indonesian director Nia Dinata. Interestingly, while Muslim women are featured in both films, Islam is not the subject of criticism but rather society's reluctance to confront interethnic marriage and the problem of polygamy. Neither radical nor conservative in tone or presentation, these two films manage to convey subversive female perspectives without promising to change the world. In that sense, "woman's cinema" does not necessarily guarantee a radical feminist intervention. Indeed, as Patricia Erens reminds us, "women's access to the means of production does not ensure fundamental change or equality of opportunity" (1990:XV), which is probably why feminists themselves have considered "woman's cinema" a problematic category from the very beginning. The term itself emerged in the West in the 1970s in relation to feminist politics and the women's movement. While some have lamented its vagueness and, as alternatives, have suggested "feminist film," "images of women in film," or "women's films," others have pointed out that the competing categories are symptomatic of the very problem: how to define a "feminine aesthetics" (Rich 1990: 269). Not surprisingly, in 1976, when Silvia Bovenshen posed the question "Is there a feminine aesthetics?" her answer was yes and no: "We are in a terrible bind. How do we speak? In what categories do we think? Is even logic a bit of virile trickery? … Are our desires and notions of happiness so far removed from cultural traditions and models?" (1977:119). This ongoing dilemma of whether a newly found agency – in this case women speaking for themselves - necessarily entails novelty or originality, speaks to the multiple challenges confronting "woman's cinema" in the West and elsewhere. Chris Berry's discussion of the difficulties in defining "woman's cinema" in the context of China is but one example (1988). However, to probe the question further of "feminine aesthetics" and "woman's cinema" would go beyond the scope and objective of this essay. Suffice it to say that the relationship between gender and cinema merits critical attention precisely because it raises important questions about re-presentation, i.e. a structure and mechanism that not only empowers us to speak for but also through our multiple "Others." 2

By Ming-Bao Yue, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

1 Vilsoni Hereniko, email communication, April 4, 2007.
2 The author would like to thank Wimal Dissanayake and Vilsoni Hereniko for their critical comments.

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