Customer Reviews

Women from the Lake of Scented Souls [VHS]

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Added Note: This is available from Amazon on DVD under the name "Woman Sesame Oil Maker". It's not great, but considerably better than the VHS, with better subtitles ... except that on at least some TV's the subtitles (which are below the wide-screen image) are cut off; it plays showing the full screen and subtitles on a computer, however. The director is given as Xie Fei, not the mis-ordered Fei Xie as here.

[Warning: I have tried to avoid being too specific, but there may be some minor spoilers.]

Xiang Ersho is a bustling and energetic woman in her mid-30's, firmly in charge of her family's finances and businesses, a one-room plant manufacturing sesame oil from the local crop and a storefront where her ne'er-do-well husband deigns to man the counter when he's not out playing go with his buddies in the park or at the local low-tech karaoke bar-boat (singing to live accompaniment). They have two children: Zhi Er, a bright, energetic and helpful young teen daughter, and Dunzi, a 22 year old son, who initially seems a cheerful if simple sort, helping make the oil and teasing the girls on the lake where he goes to bathe with Xiang's employee Jinhai. One of these girls is Huanhuan, the belle of the village; she and Jinhai are in love. To add to this comfortable picture, one day a sleek black limousine pulls up with a rich Japanese businesswoman and her translator -- she has discovered Mrs. Xiang's oil and would like to finance an export business, bringing undreamed of riches, and honor both for Xiang and the village.

The activity of the village centers around the (strangely unpolluted given the nearby city) lake, which is lovingly portrayed, almost becoming a character in its own right. The village and the lake, the subsistence activities, the rituals of play and passage, and the traditional manufacturing details of the sesame oil, form a picture of nostalgic, idylic serenity. Even the later scenes set in the local city are not the "country mouse being taken advantage of by city rats" fare so typical of Chinese films. The political turmoil that has roiled China for a century is absent.

Gradually, we are made aware that not all is truly well with Mrs. Xiang, of the tensions and sadness in her life. When the Japanese woman makes her surprise visit, the absent husband is sent for -- and shows up stumbling drunk in mid day. He is also given to coming home in the middle of the night and perfunctorily raping her as his given right. We hear her sad history, sold as a child of seven by famine-stricken parents, bride at thirteen and since then "tolerated the situation" for twenty or more years. She has sought refuge in a long-standing affair with a truck driver from the city, Mr. Ren.

Dunzi, we find, is not just cheerfully simple, but retarded and socially maladjusted, withdrawing to his locked room, and prone to uncomprehending violence. He also has frequent grand mal seizures. Xiang is trying to arrange a marriage for him through the delightfully played Fifth Aunt, with little success.

Dunzi develops an attraction to Huanhuan, and we begin to see the ugly side of Xiang's nature -- scheming, manipulative, using her wealth as a tool in relationships, letting nothing stand in her way, unwilling to brook any opposition. She sends Jinhai to a new job in the city (hedged with restrictions against returning to the village or marrying), and arranges for the village to collect outstanding loans to Huanhuan's family (one of the other reviewers has this somewhat wrong). She is then able to obtain Huanhuan as a bride for Dunzi by paying off the loan and more.

Although the sesame oil export business continues to prosper, Mrs. Xiang's other schemes begin to unravel. As the marriage of Huanhuan and Dunzi becomes harsh in its reality, so her own marriage decays even further and she is brutally beaten. Ren, whom we realize she loves, tires of the affair and vanishes (though making provision to school Zhi Er, who is his child).

Desperately unhappy, she finally realizes the horror of what she has done to Huanhuan and, broken, tries to make amends ... but, with the cadence and doom of classical Greek tragedy, it is too late.

I have to admit to being puzzled by the film's ending -- Mrs. Xiang and Huanhuan are sitting on the household dock in the moonlight, the same dock which has figured before as a place of retreat or refuge, and when Xiang makes her offer of atonement, Huanhuan only asks an anguished rhetorical question to which she seems to see no answer, only tragic finality, and 'finis.' I think we are supposed to leave it at that, but to my Western eye at least, there was an obvious and happy answer, one that it seemed the film maker went to great pains to set up only a few scenes before. Is the obvious simply impossible in the context of the village culture (which makes it doubly tragic)? Or are we supposed to understand that this is Mrs. Xiang's final, brutal betrayal, that she does not make Huanhuan see what we know she knows? But she seems as stricken and hopeless as Huanhuan herself.

An obligatory kvetch about technical issues: The cinematography seems superb, but unfortunately cannot show to full advantage in the video transfer, which for one thing seems to have been made from an old and worn film print. But at least the video quality is adequate, and not obscure, and we can see into Xie Fei's favored moonlit scenes (unlike the Mongolian Tale video, where important scenes are simply a dark blue blur). The subtitling, however, is so inept as to be malevolent. The text has the appearance of having been typed on an old typewriter with clotted keys and a dying ribbon. White-on-white is a problem, but even worse the letters are mottled, in places seeming to blend with an off-white background in chameleon fashion where solid white would be at least somewhat visible. Some sections cannot be deciphered even with repeated rewinding. Even when the words can be read, they seem to be a loose, impressionistic translation and are often far out of synch with the spoken dialog. A single word may stay up for five or ten seconds, then two lines flash by in a second or less, impossible to decipher before they vanish. And sometimes the translators simply seem to give up, leaving us to wonder what the characters are chattering about. Come on guys, this is a great film -- you can do better. Give us readable, careful subtitles, and a good transfer from a good print that lets the undoubted beauty shine through.

When I first saw this film the title had been translated as "The Women of Loon Lake". I've heard that Chinese stories are the saddest in the world and this is a story of bullying, lost opportunities, and regret.

An ambitious and industrious woman, who distills a soy sauce of renowned quality, is trapped in an unfortunate marriage to a man who wastes the money she earns by drinking and gambling her money away. Her marriage had been arranged for her by her parents when they were young but she still carries a torrid passion for another man.

This woman and her lazy husband have a first born son who is handicapped, the woman wants to arrange a marriage for her son and so she tries to bribe someone who owes her money to agree to a marriage between her son and their daughter.

The daughter is a vivacious innocent who is in love. Everyone in the village expect the young couple in love to one day marry. So when she learns that her parents are considering another match, she is thrown into utter despair.

You'll have to watch the movie to see what happens, the story is much more complex than I have described. Surprises at every turn. Very sensatively made film.

The story just draws you in and the performances are great across the board. You are just awed by the two lead female protaganists. They play mother and daughter-in-law in a complex relationship. Still memorable after all these years.