A Brighter Summer Day (Film)

1991. Dir: Edward Yang.

Context:

By 1991 the bottom had dropped out of the local market. Taiwan-made productions fell precipitously, numbering just forty-seven pictures, with audiences abandoning local films in favor of Hong Kong fare.

The huge success of Hou’s City of Sadness two years before, breaking box office records and enjoying festival acclaim, was a poignant memory accompanying a period of waiting and uncertainty. For Yang’s audience, the waiting was longer yet, since it had been five years since the acclaimed The Terrorizers. Many wondered what was next for Taiwan New Cinema and whether the momentum of City of Sadness, particularly its role in the post–martial law period of liberalization, could be sustained.

The Film:
The film’s basic premise is to superimpose school rituals—what passed for secondary education in Taipei, ca. 1960—onto the larger political repressions of the White Terror period. While it is tempting to call this allegory, it would be wrong because it implies the Guling street youth murder is just a device. But it is more than that. A better descriptive term would be telescoping—a large magnification of educational pressure and regimentation so that it expands, parallels, and occupies the screen of state-controlled regimes under martial law. Schoolyard politics are a microcosm; they authorize and stand in for a militarized, authoritarian civil society. Like a very slow zoom out, Yang gradually reveals what is happening in the larger world.

Tunnel vision is a characteristic figure of style in A Brighter Summer Day, composed of a long shot through arches, doorways, windows, and various other frames, promoting active exploration of a deep space. Recessional lines and staggered planes work like visual magnets, pulling the eye to “hot” places in the shot. In tunnel vision, darkness often surrounds and frames the space. Depth is enhanced through pools of light and shadow, which sometimes confuse priorities of distance.



Reception:
In the main, Yang’s new film did not disappoint Taiwan’s critics and, like City, it attracted prominent commentary by public figures who saw the importance of New Cinema’s historical articulation of contemporary cultural politics.

Showing for three weeks in Taipei, BSD grossed a respectable $9.93 million. It also won a special jury prize at the 1991 Tokyo International Film Festival, though the festival tried to make it look like something other than a Taiwan film. Because a government-backed Japanese conglomerate, Mico, had put up money for international rights even before Yang started shooting, the film was entered as Japanese.


References:
http://worldcinemadirectory.co.uk/component/film/?id=1129
Taiwan, a Treasure Island, 102-103,