Autumn comes to Purple Myrtle Garden

For the Mid-Autumn Festival  and the full moon tonight, Autumn comes to the Purple Myrtle Garden  (紫薇園的秋天) (Tse Mei Yuen Chau Tien) another classic of Cantonese cinema, which was released to coincide with the Festival in 1958.  People celebrate with parties, viewing the moon, eating mooncakes, and playing with lanterns. Partly it's the prospect of winter drawing near when light grows dim. But the festival is very much about family values, especially in difficult times.  The film depicts the Kok family, who live in a Republic era villa  with huge gardens. Hence the name "Purple Myrtle Garden" , lagerstomea, which is beautiful, but fragile.  The house is full of books and antiques. The Koks are old money but privilege has come at a price. When the patriarch died suddenly decades before, his widow took over the business, multiplying the fortune.  She still rules with an iron fist, controlling the destinies of her children and grandchildren, as well as the money.  The matriarch's son is spineless, though good-natured, he and his wife always praying.. (Buddhists).  Effectively, the younger  generation Koks are trapped in a kind of psychic limbo. Eldest son Kok Chung-si (Ng Chor Fan) plays the violin and paints oils. Eldest daughter Kok Fung-yee (Wong Man-lei) plays the piano. No-one really works. Kok Hok-si (Cheung Wood-yau)  goes to the office but "only signs cheques". He and second sister Kok Mok-sau (Yung Siu-yee) go out as often as they can, to escape.

Into this limbo arrives Miss Yiu Ling-yam(Pak Yin) hired to tutor the youngest grandchild, Yik-si, who can't go to school because grandmother says he's poorly.  Grandmother decides everything.  Miss Yiu notices something's wrong.  Family members eat alone in their rooms, and don't communicate.  Left to her own devices, she wanders in the garden and overhears the sound of a violin coming from a tower : it's Chung-si playing, all alone. Hok-si and Mok-sau tell Miss Yiu the background. "Purple Myrtle" was their father's first wife, who was driven out of the family by the matriarch.  So Chung-si and Fung-yee, left motherless and abused, developed problems.  At a gathering, the matriarch (played by veteran star Lai Cheuk-cheuk) comes to visit and bullies each member of the family in turn.  "What's this about you attempting suicide?" she screams at Fung Yee.  Fung-yee was married briefly but her husband died.  "In this family" snarls the matriach, "no-one comes back home whining".  (traditionally, women stayed with their married families). That night Fung-yee makes another suicide attempt, but is stopped in time.  It turns out that she's still in love with a man the matriach  disliked, so she was forced into her tragic marriage).  

When the Mid-Autumn Festival comes, Hok-si and Miss Yiu organize a party in the garden, like normal families do.  "Why won't you join us", Miss Yiu asks Chung-si. "it's not me that chooses unhappiness, but sadness which chooses me", he answers.  "When you paint", she says, "you can change the colours", ergo, you can change your life.   Lanterns are lit, and fireworks. the sound track switches from Elgar and Mendelssohn to a polka and then a waltz and then a jitterbug - Mok-sau's "modern" and likes dancing.  (see photo above)  In the shadows, Chung-si watches. Shyly, he asks Mis Yiu out, in a ltter. If she wants to go, she should turn on the lamp in her room. She does, and he can't believe his luck.  Howeber, he overhears his brother Hok-si ask her out as well.  (see photo) So he pretends he can't go, and should instead go with Hok-si who is more fun.  Too noble for his own good.  Meanwhile, Fung-yee sneaks out at night. Hok-si, Miss Yiu and Mok-sau follow. (Bizarrely the film now shows a street I grew up in, not the country villa used for the other location shoots).  Fung yee has gone to find her lost love, Pang Ching-lok, but can't face ringing his doorbell.  So Mok-sau alerts him, but Fung-Yee has run away. Hok-si confronts his father, but his father says that the matriarch's will cannot be challenged. "Kok ka pei gui" ie Kok family protocol or values)   Mr Pang finds Fung yee and asks her to elope with him, but she's absorbed the family's negative mindset and won't.

A thunderstorm descends but cannot drown out the music Fung yee is playing, which resounds tnroughout the mansion.  She locks her door so no-one can enter, then climbs on the parapet in yet another suicide attempt.  Chung-si climbs over the balconies to hold her back, and she's saved, but he collapses - he has TB.  Now at last, Chung-si is decisive : he asks Miss Yiu to marry him. "when I'm well, we can leave Tse Mei Yuen and start a new life."  If only. Mr Pang returns from the Philippines  and this time, Fung-yee agrees to go with him.  But the matriarch's spell is not yet broken. She comes back, orders the servants out and scolds the family. "So you are the Miss Yiu who has changed things here!" "No, says Miss Yiu, daring to answer back "They are changing things for themselves"  "Who has let Mr Pang in " the old lady cries. "Me" says Fung-yee's father. "Times have changed".  The matriarch forces Fung-yee to read the inscriptions that set out the family protocols from way back.  Chung-si speaks out, too and the old lady goes ballistic. "You are a bastard!"  As she raises her stick to hit him, his father, at last, intervenes.  The spell is broken.

Winter sets in, but is it too late ? "I will not see spring" says Chung-si.  The family goes down to wave Fung-yee and Mr Pang on their way. But when they go up again, Chung-si is dead.   "You've been a breath of air to this house", says his brother to Miss Yiu, "but this house has not been good to you."   Soon after, Miss Yiu is packed to leave, but as she walks past Chung-si's door, she hears the sound of his violin. She walks into the empty room. the plants on the verandah are dead, the violin in  its case. She takes the painting he made of the tower in the garden, and asks if she can have it, to "remember Tse Mei Yuen in its autumn".  As she is driven off, Hok-si tells her that, if ever she should return, there will be someone waiting. Although this is a film ostensibly about emotional manipulation and the way those who are abused internalize the mistreatment, the real meaning liues deeper. From the late 19th century there was a whole literary genre dealing withhow China responded to change after 2000 years of feudal tradition.   Unequal Treaties were the matriach writ large : control and manipulation made possible because the "family" could not assert itself.  Westernization itself is not the problem - the Koks enjoy western classical music and art.  But people need to change on their own terms, as Miss Yiu tells the old lady.  The second generation (Mum and Dad) go along with what's happening because they don't question the feudal system, but there's a rift in the third generation where the older siblings are mistreated, while the young ones are beginning to understand what's going on.  This film is beautifully made, very literary and elegaic, further making the connection between literature and social commentary, which would not have been lost on audiences aware of the context.