interface news reporter | Dong Ziqi
interface news editor | Huang Yue
This divorce story happened at the moment when revolution and tradition alternated in Kazakhstan. The marriage rules of the past have expired, and new norms have yet to be established. Men and women were equally at a loss. When there is a problem in a marriage, who should you talk to, and who should you turn to to make the decision?
Divorce stories have always been a good theme for telling social changes and social transformation. In modern literature, Lao She and Lu Xun both used this theme. The shortlisted film "divorce" for the main competition of the Golden Goblet Award at the 26th Shanghai International Film Festival attempts to focus on the relationship between men and women caught between revolutionary discourse and traditional beliefs.
In the opening sequence, a traditional play is being performed in the village, about the theme that women should obey their husbands. Mullah (the honorific title of Mr. Islam) waved his whip and scolded the kneeling woman, "A woman cannot look directly at her husband. Paradise is at a woman's feet, so a woman must keep her eyes firmly on her feet." The villagers sat on the ground. They belonged to A stupid husband and a foolish woman in the general sense, an old sister-in-law couldn't even tell the difference between a fictional play and reality: she yelled for the woman in the play who was waiting to be whipped by her husband to run away quickly, and she almost got beaten up by the men present because of the noise she made. A slap in the face from the audience because her lack of discipline affected the rest of the audience.
"Women are free now. They can go wherever they want, marry whomever they want, and no one can bully them." Revolutionary representatives and village directors fell from the sky and interrupted the performance. They carried a roll of red cloth to convey the spirit of the latest meeting to the villagers. The Soviet government liberated not only the poor, but also women: from then on, wives had equal status with husbands. After that, the representative fired a signal shot. The most domineering man present also lowered his head.
"Divorce" poster
The shape and color of this roll of red cloth are both thought-provoking. On the one hand, the red cloth represents the spirit of the meeting issued by the superior authority to the villagers, replacing the authority of the mullahs in the past. On the other hand, it is a gorgeous color that the villagers envy and even want to possess. It is so different from the gray and rough rags they wear. Before the slogan was written, it was just a piece of red cloth blowing in the wind. Red cloth will be filled with slogans about women's equality and will stand high at the head of the village. But people don't care about the specific written content.
The boy responsible for copying the slogans has not yet arrived, and the villagers can't write. This job was handed over to the current Communist Youth League secretary and the young mullah in the past. He is the person in the village who understands words best and can best influence the direction of meaning. Although his cleverness and dexterity, and his ability to adapt to the prevailing situation have caused him to lose some prestige, it will not affect his work of writing slogans. Because no matter what you write, it’s all about women anyway, the old sister-in-law said when she handed the red cloth to the young man. What's wrong with women? They are wet nurses, sisters-in-law, and housekeepers. They give love and hugs to their husbands, but sometimes they lack discipline.
The blankness of the red cloth is like the emptiness of women's lives transitioning between tradition and revolution. In the film, the heroine blames her husband for damaging her dignity by acting as a woman on stage. Her continued complaints angered her husband, causing him to utter the word "divorce." According to traditional rules, as long as the husband says "divorce" three times, the marriage will be automatically dissolved. As a result, the couple panicked and had to call for help from the mullah from the next village. But when her husband went out, the heroine really had her mind set on escaping from the marriage and marrying another rich man.
As the film develops, we will find that her escape is complicated. It is not only a resistance to husband's power, but also a mixture of reluctance to obey nature and defects of greed, stupidity and rashness. Correspondingly, at the end of the film, the representative descended from the sky again. He took back the "freedom" and "rights" previously granted to them, and scolded the village women for betraying the "mercy" and good intentions of the Soviet government. They were brought back to the government for interrogation. This time, they were no longer innocent rescuers, but thieves who stole official property.
