Mystifying and Glorious

Rating: 10/10 (3 January 2016)

This is a film that is unfairly ignored in the list of the best films ever made. Despite receiving nine Oscars it 1989, it receives little to no attention. There are a few reasons I can think of off the top of my head. The first is that it is a slower and longer movie, and there is not a lot of action or melodrama to break it up, turning off some people. The second is that it was made by Bernado Bertolucci, who is not particularly well-liked in Hollywood for reasons that date back to the movie that made him famous, The Last Tango in Paris, as well as for his hatred of the system.
But it is nonetheless one of the most striking and evocative historical epics ever put to film. Some films are ashamed to be connected with actual history. While this is not inherently negative, there is something to be said about a film embracing the history that inspired it. Art and history are often at each other's throats, but they do not have to be. One can piggyback off the other.
The only film I can compare to this is Lawrence of Arabia. That film is slightly better than this one, but both are sprawling epics that make you feel like you're in the front of a roller-coaster that's rushing through the past. While that film is more ambitious and better-acted, I actually personally prefer this one more. It's involving and atmospheric and one of the best-shot movies of the century. Every time I pop it in, I am enraptured.
There is so much work put into every scene. The makeup, the art direction, the style; this is dedication incarnate. The Last Emperor is like The Lord of the Rings or Titanic: you may not like these movies, but you have to respect how much work went into them on every front imaginable. There are times when I can't believe what I'm seeing wasn't made for quick on the computer, but then I notice how real it all seems.
The plot is simple and not the focus. John Lone (as well as a few other actors of varying age) plays Puyi, the titular 'Last Emperor'. Taking the throne as a toddler, Puyi is sheltered from the rapidly changing world around him until he can be sheltered no more and is thrown from power by the Chinese Communists, who take him to a 'political rehabilitation' camp.
A lot happens in this movie, but there are not a lot of twists and turns. You just sink in to the movie, sink in to this atmosphere. Breathe in, breathe out. Some people might be bored, but the movie is not boring. Sixty years are covered; sixty of the most interesting years in history. That is not just enough to fill three hours; that is enough to make those three hours interesting. This is the kind of film that you originally only plan to throw on for an hour or so at a time, but grabs you and pulls you in and persuades you watch the rest of it.
Interesting fact: this film did not even enter the top 5 at the box office until its twenty-second weekend of release, the weekend after it won Best Picture. That is... really rare. I know this was the eighties, when films hung around the box office as long as that wet smell hangs around a dog, but this was still not common in the least. If not for this unexpected boost, it would be alongside The English Patient, Amadeus, and The Hurt Locker.
I cannot believe a film like this was independently funded, but it was. I don't know which is more incredible, the fact that they were able to reach 23.8 million in funds or that a film of this scale was made for that cost. Either way, the fact that this film exists is almost as remarkable as the film itself.
Almost.
What I love most about this film is how it is able to make you feel a rainbow of emotions by doing very little. The acting and the camera work and the music make you feel what the character is feeling without having to sit through gobs of unnecessary dialogue. There are few better cases for the power of cinema than The Last Emperor.
You feel how sheltered he is, and how utopic they are trying to make the palace. You feel how depressed and trapped he is, especially as he grows older. You feel how confused and angered he is when he is forced by his advisors to adopt the old customs even as the world is rapidly changing. You feel his disappointment as he is deprived of a chance to rule just as he is shaped into a good ruler.
And without those gobs of unnecessary dialogue, time is freed up for important things, like fleshing out the world in which Puyi lives. With all the clever behind-the-camera work, it doesn't quite feel like a real place but rather like a enhanced, dreamy version of a real place, which I think the effect that they were going for. If it wasn't, then the people who made this stumbled onto genius: this pseudo-surreality makes it seem like a vision that is receding with every passing day, that is quickly fading out of the present into the history books.
Kudos to the filmmakers for bringing this story to the masses. Double kudos for going all out and sparing no expense. Triple kudos for making one of the best films of all time.