Center Stage (1991)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Center Stage (1991) – S. Kwan

Maggie Cheung plays silent screen actress Ruan Ling-Yu, who was China’s biggest movie star in the 1930s until she committed suicide in 1935. This was Maggie’s break-out role and she went on to become an international star after winning the best actress role in Berlin.  She appears in every scene and as a result, her character is the only fully delineated one in the film, probably intentionally.  Director Stanley Kwan uses an impressionistic strategy to triangulate the viewpoints on Ruan – the re-enactments of her life and films by Cheung and the cast, clips of Ruan’s actual films in grainy black and white, and occasionally, discussions between Cheung and Kwan himself along with surviving Chinese actors about the real Ruan.  Unfortunately, I saw a cut version (121 minutes) which may have skimped on some of the latter experimental aspects, sadly.  The film’s art direction is sumptuous, with an intense use of patterns (bold Chinese dresses in front of mismatched wallpaper somehow works a charm due to the colours chosen).  Ruan’s life was not a happy one due to her problematic relationships with an exploitative gambler and a supportive but married older man and a battle with the tabloid press seems to have ended her will to live.