The 3rd greatest movie

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2005)

This movie is EPIC. There is no other word that can describe it, and it is if this word was invented especially for it. And conversely, this is the film that gives the most accurate feeling about what the word "epic" means. It gives life to this word.
I live on the "other side" of the Earth, measured to the places, where these events happened. Geographically it is one third, but in real terms of culture, language, trading and traveling routes, ties, relations, mentality, etc. - I'm much closer to the Western European countries, America, Russia, the Middle East, even Africa - than to Eastern Asia. It is simply - in all kinds of ways - a completely different world, different as mentality and as a philosophical way of perceiving, thinking and understanding the reality. So in a way, everybody - either from Europe or America - lives from the other side of the Earth, from the point of view of China, Japan and Korea - the countries of the Far East. Yet this film brought me straight into this world, into its history, into the lives of the people there - from all kinds of perspectives - as it managed to "catch" EVERYTHING.
The historic events were only a frame for it. As the picture was coming in front of my eyes slowly, as it was forming - it showed me the things under the facts, the things the facts were made and shaped of. If somebody had told me before, that one day I will feel so strongly and emotionally for somebody, who is from the ROYALTY (I'm a confident ANARCHIST - so I don't like even the democratic rulers, let alone the royal ones); who is Manchurian Chinese (which means for me that he is from another race, and he lives "at the bottom of the geography" - that stands for somewhere far, far away - almost on another planet); who is MALE (yes, male! A nice, innocent, beautiful woman or a girl naturally would turn some emotions into me, especially when I see her suffering or crying. To feel that towards a man, as I'm a general feminist and man-hater, is fifty times more difficult); who is OLD; who was not that "refined" in the actual reality (as I know from some historic facts) - I wouldn't believe it: I would just shook my head in a gesture of neglectful disbelief.
And in total contrast to that - here I stay now, humbled and overwhelmed by this great, epic film - by its grandiosity - feeling strongly to this man, emperor Pu Yi - the last emperor of China, and contemplating the sad, horrible destiny that he and over one billion Chinese had through the quietly, or thunderously passing millenniums, and through the whole 20th century, and today - in the times when China finally wakes up, but still hasn't risen. I didn't believe that I could feel so strongly and closely to the Chinese people, who were foreign to me, before I watched this movie. Now I consider them my brothers. I found: as much they're different, that much they're close to us; they are warmblooded people, they have the same dreams, hopes and aspirations, as we have. And I will never forget what I saw. Before this film it was just dried, black & white historical facts, which I almost didn't know and didn't care for. Now it's colourful and living, and repeating, and developing into my mind, and I'm as interested in their history, as if it was the history of my ancestors and relatives. All this - from a movie: the third greatest movie.
SOME SPOILERS
There were exceptionally great scenes in it: the young Pu Yi, playing indifferent, but then crying for his mother, while driving his bicycle, when nobody could see him - as he was a boy and a royal, and was ashamed of his weakness; and when he stood helpless in front of his mentally broken wife, who he couldn't save from the crushing wheels of the cruel history - and he cried again, depicting the frightening inability of his puppet emperor's position; and when he was walking through the Forbidden City as an ordinary visitor, and he looked so old! So terribly old... And the metaphor of how he died - it was one of the FIVE MOST INFLUENTIAL END SCENES, that I have ever witnessed in a movie. It stays together, and equal to Rose, when she threw the diamond in the ocean; and to T-800, when he said: "Now I know why you cry. I wish I also could", and then hugged John; and to Lester Burnham, when he was "remembering" the great moments of his life; and to Thelma and Louise, when they "dived" into the abyss with the car. Intense sadness comes from these moments, yet they are so sincere, so pure, that they look almost real - as if they just happened, in front of our eyes. And they will haunt me forever, as fire images, engraved in every cell of my brain, being a proof of how great cinema is.
SPOILERS!!!
And I will remember... The boy opened the round box, and the cricket appeared from it - and it was IMPOSSIBLE, as no living creature can stay there for such a long time and survive. It was impossible, but yet so real, and so sad... So desperately sad! This was his spirit - which was trapped through his whole life, and finally became free, only in the time of his death. And he was there, and when the schoolboy turned behind, he was gone. There was crushing emptiness... Whoever invented this scene, is a great genius. And then: the guide was announcing it, routinely doing her job. And for all the visitors it was just dates and facts, but not for me. Because I KNEW. I knew his life and fate, and everything...