DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i08.012

Pages: 1560-1567

In I Am Not Madame Bovary (我不是潘金蓮), filmmaker Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛) tenaciously adopts circular framing and round lens to cinematically sketch how the sociopolitical and male-dominated bureaucracy plays dumb to the female protagonist Li Xuelian’s (李雪蓮) decade-long roars and legal woes about what happened to her sexuality, pregnancy, marriage, family, and romantic love. Li Xuelian’s husband, Qin Yuhe (秦玉河), promises to re-marry her after their fake divorce wins the downtown apartment from his factory and helps hide Li Xuelian’s illegal second-time pregnancy; however, he abandons Li Xuelian after winning the downtown apartment, getting rid of the responsibilities of Li Xuelian’s illegal second-time pregnancy, marrying another woman, refusing to admit his faults and betrayal, and wrongfully accusing Li Xuelian by comparing her to Pan Jinlian, the notorious woman in ancient Chinese pornography. Li Xuelian spent a decade on legal protests to rectify the injustice. It is Feng Xiaogang’s filmic documentation of Li Xuelian’s ten-year-long vagina monologue. Its circular framing and round lens serve as not only modern cinematic versions of traditional Chinese bull’s eye windows but also Feng Xiaogang’s photographic speculum to look into Li Xuelian’s womb—the sexual organ that nurtures Li Xuelian’s second embryo, loses it, and hence motivates the long-term litigation and nation-wide protests.