Taipei Story (Film)

1985. Dir: Edward Yang.


Context:



The Film:
The ending: In many respects, Along is as violent as his younger eventual killer. Unlike the boy, however, he has the illusion that he is fighting for his honor, an honor so difficult to define that it has become idiosyncratic. As Along explains to Azhen (after his fight with her yuppie friend in the bar), he believes that fighting is for a kind of “spirit” (yiko qi) or a “sense of righteousness” (zhengyi gan). When the teenager stalks Azhen, Along beats him mercilessly after lecturing him. The boy does not seem to deserve such a punishment; moreover, Along’s attachment to his girlfriend is not strong enough to justify such a jealous outburst. To this extent, Along’s violence is not so different from his killer’s, despite his own belief in a justifiable cause. The boy, however, responds by attacking him with a knife from behind, instead of fighting with Along face to face as required by the traditional code of honor and its face-saving ethics. Then he flees on his motorcycle and leaves Along bleeding to death on a street corner amid a pile of garbage, including an old television set. In the deserted Taipei street, mortally wounded by a dishonorable act, Along is completely abandoned by the world. His final futile attempt to wave for a taxi is ignored by the driver, who is probably afraid of getting himself in trouble with a wounded passenger. Ironically, Along finally finds his place among garbage, piled up with all kinds of useless articles that have already been consumed by the city. Like the TV set and other city trash wrapped in plastic bags, he is the useless leftover of another age.

On the empty screen of the abandoned TV, Along hallucinates watching the news of his baseball team’s victory approximately twenty years ago. On their return from their world championship, Along and his teammates are called the darlings and sweethearts of Taiwan, the glory of China’s sons and daughters. Along laughs bitterly at this fantasized announcement. As Aqing had commented earlier, pretty clothes are more important than excellent skills for the current junior baseball team in Taipei, because appearance is more significant than substance in contemporary society. The pursuit of national glory becomes meaningless in a commercialized modern city. His very honor also belongs to this trash heap, forsaken in the heart of the modern city.

In the following shot, the camera cuts to Azhen, who casually sleeps on a chair in her apartment. Her former boss, Ms. Mei, phones and offers her a job, and the two meet in a newly constructed office building. The huge, empty, and faintly lighted hall, where the only distinctive sound is Azhen’s high-heel shoes knocking at the floor, echoes the beginning scene of her visit to the new apartment with Along. The only difference is that her partner is no longer a man, her childhood sweetheart, but a woman, her boss and business mentor. Not only in terms of gender but also in many other aspects, Ms. Mei is just the opposite of Along. As in the past she again demonstrates her ability to remain on top of the modern world by moving a branch of an American high-tech company to Taiwan when information technology is on the verge of becoming the leader in the world economy. [Lu Tonglin]

"Taipei Story also manifests a complex awareness of the tensions that shadow and inform contemporary urban living. This film explores the troubled dislocations of the contemporary moment..." ['NCC', K-kT & WD, p64]
"The result is a film that captures the flow of urban life, reflecting the director's characteristic energy of perception and gift for precise imagery, producing a kind of poetry of urban banality. [The film] is redolent of the work of antonioni, such as L'eclisse" [Id. p64-65]


Reception:
Won Critic's Prize at Locarno 1985.




References:
http://worldcinemadirectory.co.uk/component/film/?id=1168
Lu Tonglin, chapter on Yang.