The Visual Logic of Color Symbolism and Female Predicament—A Case Study of the Film <i>Raise the Red Lantern</i>

张艺谋电影《大红灯笼高高挂》以极具秩序感的色彩设计与精致的影像构图，将女性身体置于强烈的视觉规训与空间控制之中，展现出深刻的性别意识形态结构。本文以女性主义影视批评为理论基础，结合福柯“规训权力”与“空间治理”的理论视角，探讨色彩如何在影像叙事中超越审美功能，转化为操控身体、建构性别等级秩序的重要媒介。通过对影片中红色意象、空间配置与仪式性场面的分析，揭示女性在“色彩秩序”下的命运困局及其主体性消解过程。Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern constructs a highly disciplined visual world where female bodies are subjected to aestheticized regulation and spatial confinement. This paper adopts a feminist film criticism approach, incorporating Michel Foucault’s theories of disciplinary power and spatial governance, to examine how color functions beyond visual pleasure and becomes a mechanism for controlling the body and encoding gender hierarchies. Through the analysis of red imagery, spatial composition, and ritualistic scenes in the film, the study reveals how the “order of color” entraps women in predetermined destinies while eroding their subjectivity. The research argues that beneath the film’s formal elegance lies a strict disciplinary logic, with color operating as a symbolic system of gendered power in the cinematic narrative.