A sad, ironic life . . .

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2014)

There is a breathtaking moment early in 'The Last Emperor'. The three-year-old Pu Yi sits upon his thrown and, as little boys tend to do, he gets restless. He leaps from the throne and runs toward the door laughing as the yellow drape billows over his head. The drapery blows back and thousands of his minions bow to his presence. 'The Last Emperor' is the story of a boy born of power and privilege that was all window dressing.
Pu Yi's life is full of irony and vast spaces of emptiness. When he was barely three-years old he was crowned Emperor of China. Power never goes to Pu Yi's head mostly because by the time he reached the age of seven, the political climate in China had changed to the point that he didn't have any power to wield. When he is 7 he gets a new bicycle but his guards forbid him from leaving the palace.
The story flashes back and forth from his childhood to his later years as a gardener after China became a communist country. When he is only 12 he gives up his power and sits on the throne as a figurehead but not a ruler. He is tutored about life in Europe and dreams of someday going there. Reginald (Peter O'Toole) coaxes him to get married instead. He does, her name is Wan Jung (Joan Chen) When he is 24 he finds himself locked out of the Forbidden City. The irony is that he once couldn't leave his palace, now he can't go back in. Finding that he now has to fend for himself without any of the tools or instincts that would allow him to make it in life, he moves to Manchuria. His wife becomes a drug addict and Pu Yi is arrested by Russians and returned to the Chinese.
He is not killed but sent to a re-education camp. Pu Yi has never done anything for himself. At one point he stares at the water coming out of the faucet because he doesn't know how to turn it off. This re-education process was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. For the first time he was being taught to do things for himself. Nothing before in his life had any meaning. It was all empty consequences. The journey through Pu Yi's life is riddled with sadness, loneliness and emptiness 'The Last Emperor' is a beautiful looking epic on the grandest scale. It's bold set designs and costumes are the equal to any David Lean epic. Like Lean, director Bernardo Bertolucci is able to find the smaller story inside a grand-scale epic. But unlike Lean's work very little really happens in this film. This doesn't bother me because the story of Pu Yi isn't one of overwhelming action scenes or dialogue, it is simply the story of a man who was born of privilege and because of the Chinese Revolution, found himself at the end of his life educated at doing something where he could be useful and happy.