1985. Dir: Hou Hsiao-hsien. Scr: Chu Tien-wen, Hou Hsiao-hsien. Cin: Mark Lee Ping-bin.Context:
Autobiography: After having used some of his memories as inspiration in previous films, Hou now directly adapted his childhood as authentically as he could. As he himself narrates at the beginning, this is his story and that of his family --- of the father as he first says in the narration, but the father is absent/aloof, ill and then dead, then it becomes the story of the 3 major women of the family... --- and the film was shot in Hou's actual childhood home in Fengshan, a Japanese style house which at that time belonged to his older brother. Three specific memories are cited by Hou as having stuck with him ever since his childhood and were partly what he wanted to make this film for: 1) the memory of his misbehaving, gambling and running around with his street hoodlum friends while his mother was in the city getting treatment for her cancer, 2) the memory of his older brother telling him off at their mother's funeral, and 3) the memory of his grandmother dying while the children were unable to take any better care of her. The film is extremely honest, holding nothing back even of events that portray young Hou in a none-too-generous light. Clearly this is a profoundly personal film for Hou, and perhaps even an attempt at exorcising or somehow digesting these memories obsessing him, as well as a tribute to his parents and family.
First collaboration with Lee Ping-bin: After having previously worked with Chen Kun-hou for many years, Hou now used for the first Mark Lee Ping-bin as his cinematographer, and he would go on to be hugely important for Hou's work and a world-renowned DoP in his own right.
The Film:
Themes: Growing up, generational gaps and shifts, the social and political transformation of Taiwan from 1950s/60s (eg. through radio broadcasts, history happening in the background where our central protagonist young A-Ha does not fully comprehend it), rural-urban dichotomy, and the homeland/Taiwan dichotomy: especially through the dislocation and confusion of the grandma's character, but in other touches also like the temporary (wicker) furniture bought by the father because he expected this to be merely a temporary stay-over for his family.
Style: Continuing on from last two films while further developing the long-take, long-shot aesthetic, with many still shots and elliptical editing. It creates a mix of detachment and intimacy, since we are witnessing Hou's own story which he narrates over at the beginning and end. The long-shots are still filling the frames full of multiple people co-habiting, creating a sense of community, which is obviously lost in Hou's contemporary-set films. Non-professional actors used once again.
The camera is rarely placed in the room where action takes place, creating frames—walls, doorways, windows, dividers—within the frame.
Structure: three acts, three deaths (father, then mother, finally grandmother). The father's absence is crucial for the rest of A-Ha's adolescence. Each death marked by stains of some sort, the father coughing blood, the mother's tears dropping on a letter, and the grandmother decomposing in the living room.
Historical context in the background: This film and Dust in the Wind, both taking place in the 1960s (and partly in the 1950s for this film --- beginning around 1958, then for the second part around 1965) feature more of Taiwan's historical and political context in the background. But only allusions, such as the tracks of military trucks that drove past in the night, or the flag flying at half-mast.
Since Hou's family had migrated from the mainland in the 1940s, they represent the masses of Chinese families that moved to Taiwan at that time, when Mao was about to make the PRC. Their story is one of dislocation, uprootedness and of a supposedly temporary stayover turning into something longer than they all expected, which is particularly symbolised by the character of the grandmother, but also in the fact that the father only bought cheap furniture and arranged everything so they could easily and promptly move back to the mainland without any ties holding them back in Taiwan. Also KMT propaganda, about 'winning back' the mainland and so on, is heard in radio reports and brought up by the youths. Dust in the Wind would re-explore a similar era and topic, but with the big difference that the family there are native Taiwanese, hence it shows the other side of Taiwan's mainlander-native dichotomy during this period.
Father figures: Like in Boys from Fengkuei, the father is notable in his absence (he only speaks with his son once in the film, though his children find out posthumously that this distance from them was to avoid infecting them with his TB) and vulnerability: he is ill and dies relatively early on in the film. The quest for a father figure can also be read on a national-allegorical level.
A Time to Live and a Time to Die represents a son’s version of his father’s story. Hou chooses cinema as his means of expression, a means considerably different from writing. In this film, various dialects, Hakka, Mandarin, and Taiwanese, coexist not as representatives of isolated cultures but as components of an embryonic shared contemporary Taiwan culture. Instead of speaking from the father’s perspective, the film replaces the father’s voice with the son’s, often portraying the protagonist’s point of view. However, because the story presented by the son in his film is fragmentary, his point of view does not truly restore the fatherly authority; instead, it only emphasizes the absence of a father’s voice in his childhood.
Reception:
References/Resources:
http://sensesofcinema.com/2006/cteq/time_to_live/
http://altscreen.com/05/07/2011/time-to-live-time-to-die-1985-hou-hsiao-hsien/
No comments:
Post a Comment