The Dryden will screen Ba wang bie ji (Farewell my Concubine, Chen Kaige, China/Hong Kong 1993, 157 min., 35mm, Mandarin w/subtitles) as part of the Summer of Solidarity series.

Life imitates art for a handful of characters in the Peking Opera who perform the title tragedy. Hong Kong pop star Leslie Cheung turns in an amazing performance as the concubine, a pained and jealous man unable to distinguish between male or female, reality or dream, and doomed never to achieve his one desire: his king's love. The makeup, costuming, and production design are immensely detailed in a film that spans fifty years of modern Chinese history. This astonishingly beautiful epic is one of the greatest films produced in China.

[source: George Eastman Museum website, 2016-Aug-22]