The Last Emperor

1987 - Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.  Written by Bertolucci and Mark Peploe

★★★★ 1/2

Such a sad, small epic of a man who was bounced from golden prison to golden prison and then finally to walls of concrete and a sad end. I dont' quite buy that Pu Yi had that serene of an ending, but nonetheless it's a great movie  about his poor life.




The movie opens in 1908 as Puyi, all of three years old, is crowned Emperor of China.  It follows him throughout his entire life through the Chinese Republic, the age of the warlords, the invasion by Japan and finally the rule of the Communists as he is tried for war crimes in collaborating with the Japanese in their rule over Manchuria.

What makes this movie particularly special is a masterful use of flashbacks as Puyi's story is told through his confessions in a reeducation camp in 1950's Communist China.  We see his life as a small child his gradual growing up and realizing that as Emperor he is essentially a prisoner in his own palace and his frustrations as he tries to break out of the path laid down for him and become his own man.  He tries to makes friends with a British tutor, played wonderfully by Peter O'Toole in a performance that makes you wonder how much this tutor was influencing him for British purposes, his younger brother, his wives and even the Japanese later on...but in the end he stands nearly alone.  It's a combination of three actors playing Puyi at various times in his life and especially by John Lone as an adult, all three of whom deliver very good performances for what they are asked to do.

It's a special movie; I'm an ardent despiser of monarchies and those who call themselves royal but this movie even managed to make me sympathetic towards this man, stuck in his gilded cage almost all his life and then called to answer for crimes that were not even really his.  But as he says towards the end, and he means it, "I was responsible for everything."

This is part of an occasional series where I watch every one of the pictures that have won Best Picture at the Oscars.  The full list, including my rankings, can be found here.