The 'powder' scene


This scene has always slightly confused me. At least, I'm not sure if I'm interpreting it correctly.

Is it supposed to imply that Jim's mother made it home, somehow found the time to powder her face, but was then interrupted by Japanese soldiers who captured her and sent her off to the camp?

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That works.

I, personally, thought she was dragged away.

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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .

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That powder was talcum powder, which fair, upper-crust British ladies of Mrs. Graham's kind would use to keep from perspiring in the Chinese heat – or at least to keep the shine and sweat matted down. They applied it all over their bodies. The talc was likely spilt from a jar on a dresser during a tussle with an intruder (maybe it was Jim's mother – or perhaps it was one of their servants returning) ransacking the house (to me, it looked like it ended in a sexual assault – it was at the least very violent). The talc captured the imprinted motions and footsteps of their struggle like a fingerprint of a moment in time until Jim, as the horror of what transpired gradually dawned on him, opened the window and let the wind blow it away.

Also, in the book, after Jim is separated from his parents, his mother and father end up at another camp nearby. Unable to escape Shanghai for Hong Kong, they probably never made it back to their home but were instead rounded up by the Japanese and held at a temporary facility (like Jim after he, Basie, and Frank are captured) until they were moved into an internment camp.

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I rewatched Empire of the Sun and was struck by one detail. Immediately after the scene with the talcum powder in the bedroom, Jim sees Amah and another woman carrying an expensive piece of furniture out of the house. When she approaches him and slaps him on the face, she leaves finger marks of talcum powder on Jim's cheek.

Those talc marks imply that Amah's been busy scavenging whatever she can from her employer's house and fighting off any competition for the spoils. She might have struggled in the bedroom with another looter over jewels or other expensive treasures.

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I agree with ya Flora!:)
I too thought it might've been some kind of a struggle if not an assault as the hand prints+music suggested but seeing the powder on his cheek made me realise it was the maid lady's doing.

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