THE TERRORIZERS (Edward Yang, 1986)

The Taiwan Film Festival finished today, and I was able to see another early Edward Yang film, The Terrorizers (1986). Last week I saw Yang's Taipei Story (1985), and although it was quite different from Yang's later Yi Yi (2000), there were enough similarities to suggest a cohesion. The Terrorizers, on the other hand, has almost nothing in common with later Yang, and only connects with Taipei Story through the milieu.

The Terrorizers tells a story connecting numerous characters and how their lives intersect. Like many such narratives, the last half is much more compelling, especially on first viewing, because of the difficulty of establishing so many characters and their various interrelationships. Even by the conclusion, there are a number of aspects that I still find puzzling and unexplainable. However, this does not take away from the power of the plot's unfolding. There is not just one but two artist characters in the film: a male photographer and a female novelist. As a result, the unfolding of the character's lives is presented in a very self-reflexive manner, in which art does have a profound influence on lives, even if this impact is mostly on the personal level. In addition to the two artist figures, Yang also includes a character, nicknamed "the white chick" (she is actually Eurasian), who is blatantly symbolic. Despite these distancing devices, the film never loses its sense of lived reality in modern Taipei. That said, it lacks the social zeitgeist quality of Taipei Story.

The influence of the European art cinema is very present here, probably more than Taipei Story. I found the often noted resemblance to Antonioni more prevalent here, as well as a continued affinity with Wim Wenders. But the film that I was reminded of most while watching The Terrorizers was not from the past but rather a work made a decade later, the Korean film The Day a Pig Fell in the Well (Hong Sang-soo, 1996). The rather drab look of both films, along with their multi-character narratives, are initially oft-putting but become gradually more effective as they progress. The figure of the artist is prominent, as is common with both Yang and Hong. The two works also share an interest in surrealism, as evident in the presence of sudden outbursts of sexualized violence as well as unmarked dream sequences towards their respective conclusions.

I doubt if the influence on Hong was direct. But it is interesting to note that both Yang and Hong, early in their respective careers, made similar films that merged European cinematic styles within their own emerging national cinemas. As it turned out, Hong would be more consistent in his output than Yang, although Hong's first film remains the most unlike the rest of his remarkably consistent output. As for Yang, I'm anxious to track down his 90s work to see how he moved from these early studies of modern and post-modern Taipei to the very different Yi Yi in 2000.

GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (Tsai Ming-Liang, 2003)

They are very few movies that I come across anymore that I find wholly unique and difficult to classify, but Goodbye, Dragon Inn is one of them. No doubt this says something about myself and where my tastes lie. Anyone with a strong background and interest in experimental cinema, as opposed to art cinema, would find Tsai's film less distinct. My previous exposure to Tsai was several years ago with Vive L'Amour (1994), and there are some connections to that previous work here, such as the sparse amount of dialogue, the obsession with water, themes of alienation and emptiness, etc. But Vive L'Amour can be compartmentalized as part of Asian minimalism. Goodbye, Dragon Inn, however, pushes heavily towards the non-narrative avant-garde.

Coincidentally, the film I thought of most when viewing Goodbye, Dragon Inn is Derek Jarman's Blue (1993), which is playing next week at the cinematheque as part of the Jarman retrospective. This is not to suggest that the two are similar in any way. In fact, as experimental cinema goes, they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Blue consists of nothing but a blue screen and puts the primacy on the audio track. Goodbye, Dragon Inn has only two scenes of dialogue, not counting the film within a film, King Hu's Dragon Inn (1966). Also, while I strongly disliked Blue (but admittedly, this was almost 10 years ago), I loved Tsai's experiment. Nevertheless, both films share in common the characteristic of almost, if not quite completely, abandoning narrative altogether.

What I rebelled against in Blue was that Jarman, for me, not only abandoned narrative but left behind cinema itself. Goodbye, Dragon Inn on the other hand exists just about purely as film. The images Tsai composes are so rich that narrative would get in the way. What Tsai gives in the place of story is a reflective consideration of cinema itself, what it was, what it currently is, where it may be going. No other scene best reflects this than when the cinema itself empties and we as an audience are looking back at our mirrors, the empty seats that we too will shortly leave. The shot is held so long that it becomes a near Cage-ian experiment in what the audience will do when confronted with this emptiness. It is part of the provocative and perverse nature of the film that Tsai is commenting on the death of cinema as represented by the closing theatre with a work that absolutely relies on being seen in such a theatrical setting.

Taiwan Film Festival Extended (3 days)

The Taiwan Film Festival at the cinematheque, which was originally supposed to end today (June 22nd) has been extended to Thursday (June 26th). The screenings with English subtitles are as follows:

Tuesday (24th): City of Sadness (3:00pm), Taipei Story (8:30)

Thursday (26th): Eat Drink Man Woman (6:00pm), The Terrorizers (8:30)

The addition of the two Yang films is especially good news, since they only had a single screening each.

The Derek Jarman retrospective starts on Friday.

SUMMER AT GRANDPA'S (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1984)

Art cinema is similar to popular film in being fond of trilogies. Long before Star Wars, there was Ingmar Bergman's "Silence of God" trilogy, and ever since critics have been prone to dividing director's outputs in sets of threes. The difference is that the films are often not linked by a continuation of story, as in popular film, but rather by a continuation of theme. Hou Hsaio-Hsien has (at least) two separate trilogies in his output: the "Coming of Age" films Summer at Grandpa's (1984), A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1985), and Dust in the Wind (1986) and the "Taiwanese history" films City of Sadness (1989), The Puppetmaster (1994), and Good Men, Good Women (1995). The historical films are generally considered the greater achievements, but if the first of the coming of age films is any indication, they are fine achievements that should not overlooked.

Summer at Grandpa's is based on the childhood memoir of co-writer Chu Tien-Wen. The story focuses on a pre-adolescent boy and his younger sister, who at the beginning of the film are sent from Taipei to a small town in the country when their mother falls ill. Not surprisingly, the story concludes when they return to the city. There is thus a very standard feel to the coming-of-age story presented. Even the idiosyncratic nature of Hou's style blends very naturally with the material. This is partly because Hou's approach here is less rigorous than in the later films. There are many of the Hou signatures on display: the use of long takes, long lenses, and shots of frames within the frame. The difference is that their deployment is less systematic than in a film like City of Sadness, especially in the outdoor scenes in nature, and as a result the film feels less distanced and more immediate, relatively speaking of course.

However, it is important not to take this familiarity for granted and ignore the subtlety on display here. The vague outline of the plot would suggest a tale in which the young city boy learns from the wisdom of the older patriarchal figure of the grandfather. Hou and his screenwriter handle the material more complexly. The key to this is the younger sister and her attachment to a outcast, mentally challenged woman in the village. The way in which this subplot plays out calls into question the authority of the grandfather, who is also a dominant presence as the village doctor. None of this is the least bit heavy-handed, but still refreshingly challenges the kind of gender norms we expect to find. And even though the boy's farewell to his friends is the last scene we see, the goodbye I remember most is the young girl's unanswered call to the woman who effectively became her substitute mother.

Hou has often expressed an admiration for the Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, even making a whole film as a tribute, Cafe Lumiere (2003). This is the most Ozu-like of his films that I have seen, both in the greater classicism of the style and in the great doubled ending reminiscent of Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). In his book Sexual Politics and Narrative Film (1998), Robin Wood has a great essay challenging the perceived conservatism of Ozu, arguing that he can also be read as a progressive or even radical filmmaker. I think a similar argument can be made for this film, an argument even more convincing given the overt political stance of Hou's later work.

TAIPEI STORY (Edward Yang, 1985)

Like many, my only exposure to the work of the late Edward Yang was thorough his final film, Yi Yi (2000). None of his other films are easily available on DVD. I was hoping the Taiwanese film festival would include Yang's 1991 film A Brighter Summer Day, often cited as his masterpiece and difficult to see in its complete version. The festival was missing this work, but did include Yang's previous two films, Taipei Story (1985) and The Terrorizers (1986). Both were playing here last night, unfortunately the only screening of each. Due to time constraints, I was only able to see the first of these.

Reading about Taipei Story before the screening, I was surprised to see the number of critics who compared Yang with Michelangelo Antonioni. The influence never crossed my mind in regards to Yi Yi, and I'm not sure it would have come immediately to mind with Taipei Story either. I would not argue against the modern existential characteristics of the work, but watching the film I thought of Timothy Corrigan's book A Cinema Without Walls (1991) which deals with the phenomenon of postmodernity and its influence on movie culture. What we generally conceive of as modernity and postmodernity collide in Taipei Story and give the film a real fascination and beauty. Unfortunately I do not have a DVD copy to provide stills, but many of Yang's most memorable images come from this collision. The scene that stays in my mind take place on a rooftop in front of a large neon Fuji sign, the two lovers dwarfed and in shadows while classical music plays on the soundtrack. The more Taiwanese cinema I watch, the more its influence on Wong Kar-Wai becomes apparent.

A curiosity about Taipei Story is that it stars Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who would become the major director of the Taiwanese New Wave. After viewing each director over the past week, there are actually few similarities between them. Yang is a much more conventional director. There are some uses of the long take, but there are plenty of sequences with more cutting and close-ups. Yang is interested in the spaces and objects of modernity (and/or postmodernity) and trying to relate the importance of these to the characters and their world. The West also plays a major symbolic role here, not surprising given Yang's background living in the U.S. The dream of California, represented both commercially by the lead character's brother and culturally through VCR tapes of American baseball, lingers over these people's lives as an illusion that oddly lacks any real utopianism. It is simply a retreat and escape.

In this way, Yang is certainly closer to European art cinema directors of the 60s and 70s, who in fact influenced Yang to become a director. After dropping out of USC film school feeling he lacked any talent, Yang re-engaged with the medium after watching art cinema classics, beginning with Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972). And much more than Antonioni, it is the New German Cinema influence I see as prevalent in Taipei Story. The inspiration is not so much Herzog as Wim Wenders in Yang's attraction-repulsion to America and the later films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Yang's enclosed compositions combined with elements of classicism. Hou's performance here reminded me of Fassbinder's roles in many of his bleak urban dramas.

In a short review of Yi Yi written a few years ago, I commented: "Throughout the film, Yang uses a repeated visual motif to express his multi-character narrative in which each strand comments upon the other: the overlaying of reflecting images of windows that create dense, layered compositions. Early in the film, one character states: 'Is there anything real left?' These compositions seem to ask the same question." Taipei Story is a very different film, but it has some of these same characteristics. And although the overlapping image shot is not a visual motif here, the film does end with one of these compositions. Although the sense of connection is not as elaborate (some could say schematic) as it is in Yi Yi, Taipei Story offers up a similar tale of past, present and future colliding in modern Taiwan. The much more pronounced cynicism around the family in this early work also provides a clue to the more subtle pessimism of Yi Yi.

A couple of links to writing on Yang:

Rosenbaum's career overview

Senses of Cinema profile

CITY OF SADNESS (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1989)

When encountering a film as acclaimed as Hou's City of Sadness, the result is often respectful admiration rather than immediate emotional impact. This is especially true when the subject is historical material that you may not be familiar with. This was certainly the case when I watched my first Hou film, The Puppetmaster (1994), nearly a decade ago. However, City of Sadness, despite being difficult to fully comprehend and absorb on first viewing, has a rare affecting power to match its political and social insight.

Hou's patient style is crucial to this affect. The first hour of the film is the most difficult, as Hou is putting into play many of the characters and situations without the usual exposition that we expect from historical dramas. One reason for this is that Hou is clearly speaking directly to a Taiwanese audience that does not need this exposition. Made in 1989, shortly after the loosening of four decades of strict censorship and martial law, City of Sadness was one of the first films to deal with Taiwan's past (and was very successful commercially as a result). Although it has the feel of an epic of vast historical scope, the film actually takes place within a four year period. It begins with the end of World War II and Japanese rule in 1945 to the establishment of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese nationalist government-in-exile in 1949 following the loss of mainland China to Communist forces. Hou concentrates on one family and how these historical events impact their lives. It reminded me of Tian Zhuang-Zhuang's The Blue Kite (1993), although usefully serving as a reminder that Chinese government oppression preceded the Communist rule.

The restraint Hou shows early in the film allows the last half of his work to have the force it does. The main event depicted, apparently for the first time in cinema history, is of the massacre of native Taiwanese committed by Kuomintang troops on February 28, 1947. But because of how Hou has quietly established the spaces of his characters, particularly the hallway of a hospital where two main characters work, he does not need to indulge in massive amounts of violent spectacle to have the desired visceral effect. Hou does not deviate from his long take, long shot approach, continuing to view the violence with the same perspective of the earlier scenes.

Adding to this distance is the lead character, played by Tony Leung, who is deaf and mute. All of his communication takes place through writing, which Hou renders through inter-titles, not unlike the style of silent films that he would later recreate more throughly in Three Times (2005). As many critics have noted, he becomes an audience surrogate, often forced to watch rather than influence events. It also brings a poignancy to his relationship with his leftist friend's sister, a romance that recalls the later work of Wong Kar-Wai. Leung's character is also a photographer, a chronicler of the personal histories, a role that extends to delivering news of the execution of fellow travelers to their loved ones. If he is an audience stand-in, he is also a representative of Hou himself.

When film critics and scholars discuss the most important artists of the last few decades, Hou and Abbas Kiarostami typically top the list, and despite their differecnes they both share an important quality. Like Kiarostami, Hou's distance does not result in alienation of feeling, but rather its intensification. Likewise, the small amount of actual violence shown does not mitigate the critique of oppression. Rather, it functions as an implicit statement against films that rely on gruesome extravagance. With City of Sadness, the result is an aesthetically beautiful film that uses its stylistic brilliance to convey its ideas about society and politics.

UPCOMING: TAIWAN FILM FESTIVAL

The 2nd Taiwan Film Festival will be held at the Seoul Cinematheque from June 10th-26th. The schedule has not yet been announced, but will feature a career overview of the late Edward Yang as well as films from Hou Hsiao-Hsien. No information as of yet on English subtitles.