Even
according to its most ardent admirers, it was a movement that only lasted a few
years in the 1980s. Yet, it has had a lasting influence on art cinema
throughout Asia and beyond. If there is one filmmaker who best embodies the New
Taiwanese Cinema (or New Wave) it would be Hou Hsiao-hsien. Fittingly, Hou
factors prominently in Hsieh Chin-lin’s documentary, Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema (trailer here), which screens as
part of the Hou retrospective Also Like Life, now underway at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater.
They
were the product of a very specific place, at a very specific time. Taiwan was beginning
its transition to a legitimate democracy, while its economy was emerging as one
of Asia’s vaunted “Tigers.” Hou and Edward Yang were addressing the Taiwanese
character in intimate terms, while also exploring the messier aspects of the
nation’s history, including the Japanese occupation and the purges of the
1950s. Perhaps most importantly, they received unprecedented recognition on the
international festival circuit.
It is particularly telling to hear Chinese filmmakers like Jia Zhangke and dissident artist Ai Weiwei express their esteem for New Taiwanese Cinema and considerable regret an equivalent movement was not possible in Mainland cinema. Hsieh does not belabor the point, but one gets a real sense that Hou, Yang, and their colleagues helped exorcise many of Taiwan’s ghosts and thereby helped the nation progress into a modern democracy.
We
hear from many other appreciative filmmakers, including Apichatpong
Weerasethakul, who credits the New Taiwanese Cinema for shaping his style. It
is not hard to see the seeds of his inspiration, but it does not seem fair to
lump the 1980s Taiwanese auteurs into the slow cinema rubric. Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day is a particular touchstone
for Weerasethakul, but that film has no shortage of plot in its two hundred
thirty-seven minutes.
Unlike
typical talking head documentaries, Hsieh is unusually sensitive to the power
of place. It just adds something unquantifiable when Japanese actor Asano
Tadanobu discusses making Hou’s Café Lumière
in the Japanese bookstore where many of their scenes were shot. It is also
a nice touch interviewing Hirokazu Kore-eda in the hotel room where Ozu and his
co-writer Kogo Noda worked out so many of their great collaborations. Of
course, Hsieh liberally illustrates Flowers
with clips from the films under discussion. Many might be obvious choices,
like the stunning opening shot of Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo (which some might consider a post-New film), but they still look
great.
