By Way of Melancholia: Remembrance of Tiananmen Square Incident in Summer Palace

How should a traumatic historical event be approached, remembered, and represented in retrospect? The Tiananmen Square Incident that occurred two decades ago has remained an ineffable topic in China due to both political censorship and the brutality of the event. Lou Ye's Summer Palace (2007) is significantly the first Chinese film dealing with the remembrance of the incident. This paper suggest that the representation of historical trauma in an unmediated form ultimately partakes in the violence of the dominant language that has caused the trauma in the first place. By way of melancholia impasse, Lou Ye directs the gaze from the present and firmly dwells on the historical ruins from the past for the past's sake alone. Through a close reading of Summer Palace, this paper aims to unravel the power of melancholia in defiance of the triumphant historical culture.