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Presented in collaboration with the China Institute of America. Organized by the Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago & the Taiwan Film Center (Taipei)
In 1993, our first in-depth survey of ten years' worth of emerging Taiwanese cinema opened auspiciously with Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Boys of Feng Kuei, the award-winning film that brought both a major new directorial talent and an emerging national cinema to international attention. Hou's work, like that of many of the Taiwanese filmmakers discovered in his wake, ushered in a kind of intimate, more personal Chinese cinema. The heroes of this new cinema were most often disaffected young people, trying to make sense of their lives in a world seemingly defined by constant change.
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"Change," wrote Richard Peña in his cogent 1993 review of Taiwan's evolution, "is the defining characteristic of contemporary Taiwanese history. For centuries a kind of island outpost of the southern Chinese, Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 and remained its colony for the next 50 years (the Japanese influence is apparent in many of the films). In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek's government fled the mainland for Taiwan, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of refugees from all over China, many of them with their own distinct cultural traditions and dialects. Taiwan was transformed from an outpost into China itself--'the real China,' guardian and preserver of the culture and civilization. The political tensions between Taiwan and the mainland were eventually supplanted by yet another new development: Taiwan's emergence in the 70s as an economic powerhouse, one of the so-called 'dragons' helping to shift the patterns of global economic power."
This year's selection of cutting-edge Taiwanese movies continues to react--in new and different ways--to the country's tumultuous history. What does it mean to be Taiwanese? What is the relation of the socio-political past to the present? How can one modernize but remain rooted in rich tradition? How does the affluent young Taiwanese Everyman or Everywoman find sustaining meaning in a world full of goods, but too often empty of good? Join us as we set sail into the cinematic imaginations of Taiwanese directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Stan Lai, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang--unanachored by regional ties, tradition, even friends and family, but always guided by filmmaking talent of the first water.
program notes and times
TROPICAL FISH
Chen Yu-hsun, 1995; 130 minutes
In this hilarious yet deeply felt romantic comedy, an unhappy adolescent, full of pent-up frustration about grades, school bullies, and angry parents, takes refuge in a colorful fantasy world of tropical fish and computer games. Chiang's courageous intervention in the kidnapping of a little boy suddenly merges fantasy and reality, changing the boy's life for good.
Fri, Sept 13: 2 pm
Sat, Sept 14: 4 and 8:45 pm
GOOD MEN, GOOD WOMEN
Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1995; 108 minutes
To a typically economical use of detail and synecdoche, Hou adds a startlingly advanced use of editing, inventing a dozen new ways to structure a scene. A single cut can span a dozen years even as the voice-over loops over and around the scene, knotting a story line so unobtrusively complicated it makes a time traveler like Alain Resnais seem all thumbs.
-- J. Hoberman, Village Voice
A young woman rehearses for a film called Good Men, Good Women about an actual couple who fought against the Japanese in China half a century ago. As an unknown harasser periodically faxes pages from Liang Ching's stolen diary, the actress imagines her finished film--colored by her past as a drug-addicted barmaid linked to a gangster. Hou Hsiao-hsien masterfully weaves these strands of past and present, fiction and history, into a rich tapestry of beautifully composed, enduring patterns of human experience and emotion.
Friday, September 13: 4:30 and 8:45 pm
Saturday, September 14: 6:30 pm
Sunday, September 15: 6:15 pm
THE PEONY PAVILION
Chen Kuo-fu, 1995; 100 minutes
Chen's approach...is fresh and full of energy, with a clear eye for detail. -- David Overbey on Chen's Treasure Island
Lily dies with an unfulfilled wish to meet her dream lover--a handsome scholar who is part of her vision of another time and another place. Yu-mei, an over-the-hill pop singer who looks like a double of Lily's dream lover, moves into her old apartment and finds himself making nightly visits to the dead woman's dream garden. Drawing inspiration from a classical Chinese romantic play, director Chen brings us a modern story about two individuals, disillusioned by reality, who find solace and love with each other in a mutually sustaining illusion.
Friday, September 13: 6:40 pm
Sunday, September 15: 4:15 and 8:30 pm
SUPER CITIZEN KO
Wan Jen, 1995; 120 minutes
Ko has spent the last three decades in solitude--first in a prison as political activist, then in a senior citizen's home repenting the death of a close friend killed because of him. Recovering from a heart attack, Ko realizes it's time to face his own past. He begins a long and seemingly futile journey in quest of his old comrades, but time seems to have erased their existence...until he finally discovers the absolution his parched soul so desperately desires. A deeply absorbing drama about an ordinary man's need to take stock and make sense of a complex life--on both emotional and sociopolitical fronts.
Monday, September 16: 2 and 6:15 pm
SIAO YU
Sylvia Chang, 1995; 103 minutes
Chang is a phenomenon: In the male-dominated Hong Kong/Taiwan film industry, she has not only survived, but has triumphed. She is a producer, screenwriter, singer (seven platinum albums), director, and major star....In the films she has directed...she has demonstrated a uniquely sensitive style which often belies the tough intelligence which informs her work....Siao Yu is [her] best film in years...full of compassion, charm, an eye for subtle emotional detail and a refusal of easy laughs or flashy technique....-- David Overbey, Toronto Film Festival
Siao Yu (the remarkable Joyin Liu, in her first role) is an illegal alien working in a Manhattan sweatshop. To attain citizenship, she and her boyfriend Jiang-wei strike a deal for a fake marriage with Mario Moretti, an aging ex-radical journalist and a gambler on a major losing streak (Daniel Travanti). But an unexpected friendship develops--complicated by the sudden arrival of Mario's wife Rita and Jiang-wei's jealousy--and Siao Yu is faced with painful, life-changing choices.
Monday, September 16: 4:15 and 8:30 pm
THE RED LOTUS SOCIETY
Stan Lai, 1994; 120 minutes
Ahda is a young man less interested in studying for college than with learning the martial art of "vaulting," or qinggung, an ancient kung-fu skill that allowed one to defy gravity and cover great distances. Moving between modern Taipei streets and Red Lotus adventures, Ahda's quest leads him into the mysterious worlds of some fascinating characters: old man Mao, who entertains his listeners with tall tales of the Super Seven, survivors of the sacred Red Lotus Society; a janitor living on a marketplace rooftop; a blind masseuse; and a beautiful businesswoman.
Wednesday, September 18:
2 and 6:30 pm
Thursday, September 19:
4:15 and 8:30 pm
LONELY HEARTS CLUB
Yee Chih-yen, 1995; 110 minutes
In her 40s, Chen finds herself parent of a rebellious teenager, wife of an unfaithful husband and daughter-in-law to an ineffectual mother. She and eight other characters attempt to make human connections through a Lonely Hearts Club.When Chen meets Lone, a young office boy with a mysterious smile and history, she wonders if he just might be her ticket out of boredom. In her first movie--a risky-business romantic comedy--film critic/TV director Yee Chih-yen eerily captures the desperate loneliness of isolated urbanites.
Wednesday, September 18: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
Thursday, September 19: 2 pm
REBELS OF THE NEON GOD
Tsai Ming-liang, 1992; 106 minutes
Bored to numbness at the thought of taking his entry examinations for school, Kang, whose mother thinks he might be the reincarnation of the mischievous god Nacha, opts for real life over books and takes to wandering the streets. In no time he hooks up with Ah Tze, a videohead and first-class tough who likes to thrash a heavy chain and padlock at cars as he rides by on his eardrum-shattering motorbike. Critic Tony Rayns calls Neon Gods "a piercingly visual film--the vandalized motorbike with 'AIDS' sprayed across its fuel tank, the unmade bed, the floating shoe, the cloudy skies. No other director since Fassbinder has got inside young male anomie with such tenderness and worth [and] without the usual pages of breast-beating dialogue. In a remarkable year for Chinese cinema, Tsai's debut strikes me as the finest and most
beautiful single achievement."
Friday, September 20: 6 pm
Saturday, September 21: 4 and 8:30 pm
VIVE L'AMOUR
Tsai Ming-liang, 1994; 119 minutes
Three isolated souls in modern-day Taipai make a kind of vital connection in an unrented apartment: Hsaio-kang, who knocks on doors selling niches for cremated human remains, pockets a forgotten key and takes to visiting the empty rooms. May, the realtor who left the key, and one of her pickups--a young man who sells lingerie on the street--begin using the apartment regularly for their assignations. The intersection of these three lives arouses laughter, but our hilarity is laced with an edgy recognition of contemporary angst. David Overbey (Toronto Film Festival) calls Vive l'amour a "startlingly brilliant work...told in images...with little dialogue....We come to care for each of the characters and it [is] difficult to remain indifferent to the sexual scenes. There is one of homoerotic masturbation, longing and desire that carries an incredible erotic charge. Tsai has made a major film."
Friday, September 20: 8:10 pm
Saturday, September 21: 6:10 pm
A BORROWED LIFE
Wu Nien-jen, 1994; 167 minutes
One stormy night, a man--aged 62--dies alone. Married young into his wife's family in northern Taiwan, he had always tried to fulfill his obligations as a loving father and a dedicated husband, but somehow failed to live up to expectations--his unyielding loyalty to a faraway Japan made him a kind of outsider even in his own home. Slightly adrift, he seemed to cling to the edges of many different worlds, in none of which did he ever find true spiritual citizenship. A Borrowed Life strives to understand how and why this lost soul never really achieved an authentic life of his own.
Sunday, September 22: 4 pm
Saturday, September 23: 2 and 8:30 pm
A CONFUCIAN CONFUSION
Edward Yang, 1994; 127 minutes
(1995 New York Film Festival)
"The hallmarks of any film by Edward Yang include sophisticated technique, deep seriousness of intent, a wicked sense of irony and humour, and a forceful, clear intelligence.... In A Confucian Confusion, he takes a look at the current generation of young people living in Taipai, who enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. His characters--in the arts, in the media, in technology--seemingly have everything, but not one of them is happy. Yang suggests that in cutting themselves off from the values of their traditional culture, while too rapidly embracing unexamined Western values, they have become empty and rootless. No dreary sociological treatise, but rather something like a screwball comedy about a culture-in-transition, Confusion follows Yang's young men and women through their personal and professional lives during three days as they pursue their deepest desires and dreams." -- Edited from David Overbey's comments, Toronto International Film Festival
Sunday, September 22: 7:30 pm
Monday, September 23: 6 pm
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