It is amazing what can stand out in a film. Hsiao-hsien Hou’s A City of Sadness (1989) is ostensibly a film about the so-called “White
Terror” massacre of 20,000 Taiwanese protesters by the Chinese occupying forces
on February 28th of 1947.
While the incident itself looms large in the story, surprisingly little
violent action actually appears on screen, and most of those moments did not
cement themselves in my recollection of the film. In a different movie this would be a major
flaw, but here it is to the benefit of the picture. Hsiao-hsien Hou could not have encapsulated
the horrors of this event into a single film, and he wisely instead chooses to
focus on how the tragedy affects one family of four brothers.
Most movies
have to be about characters. It is
simply how we relate to them. Here,
however, no one brother, or one character for that matter, sticks out. Indeed, without the help of the IMDb I would
be unable to name a single one. This too
would be a problem in most films, but A
City of Sadness, as the title suggests, is much more about mood than about
characters or plot. This group of
people, a family, is as good a lens to observe these tragic events as any other
might be. They talk to each other as
family, calling one another “brother” in conversations both mundane and
momentous, but what is ultimately conveyed is that they could be anyone. Their problems are theirs and ours, and as the
world around them is torn to pieces they endure not as uniquely persistent
heroes, but as they and their people always have. The “city” is groups both small and large;
family units and the nation of Taiwan as a whole.
For nearly
400 years the island of Taiwan has rarely been self-governed. It was a trading outpost for Europeans when
it was “discovered” by the West in 1622, and has been at various times under
the control of the Dutch, the Japanese, and the Peoples Republic of China. The end of WWII saw one occupying force
traded for another, and Han residents relegated to the status of a conquered
people. When the Chinese withdrew in
1988, public mention of the February 1947 incidents had been outlawed for over
40 years. To speak of them was to be a
marked man. After their exit, Red China
continued to claim political power in the Republic, but Taiwanese culture, and
in particular cinema, emerged as a movement staunchly defiant and vocally independent. Hsiao-hsien Hou was at the forefront, and A City of Sadness was a nuanced but
clear massage about national identity emerging from years of occupation.
To attempt
to convey the plot of this film would be futile. My understanding of the framing events is
limited, and individual characters only occasionally emerge from the group to
rise to dramatic climaxes. Hsiao-hsien
Hou seems much more interested in telling his story through the use of a slowly
sustained crescendo of mood, ultimately leading to the dominance of atmosphere
over action. It seems better here to
describe a single scene. Though it
serves perhaps more as transition than any other in the film, its images moved
me.
In extreme wide shot we see a man
who we know to be deaf having his picture taken with a woman he loves in front
of a mountain vista. A cut to a wide
shot brings us closer in, and it is clear that the characters are communicating,
but we hear no dialogue as the photographer and male subject switch places for
another snap shot. We are kept in
silence and at a distance, as the deaf man must so often experience, and yet
the music and the happiness of the movement in this minor event speak volumes
in our minds. These are people living
their lives against a backdrop bigger than what they can control. They find happiness not just despite their
circumstances, but also because it is in their nature to seek it out. They have impending problems and little ability
to mount against them, but their belief in beauty and in love of others occasionally
affords them that happiness, and to waist that, to never defy the sadness that
surrounds them, would be a defeat they could not bear.
I do not
think that this is a great film in every respect. It defies many conventions and is thus both
difficult and delightful. It can be hard
to follow, but is rarely hard to like.
Its material is heavy and yet its hand is always light. It never forces itself, and thus it feels to
be without force, but its quiet dignity is ever-present. Its characters are not everymen, but instead
they are all the men of their country.
They search for identity as their nation does. A City
of Sadness however has both identity and mood, the latter in spades.
Language: Taiwanese/Mandarin/Japanese
Runtime: 157 Minutes
Grade: 2.5 Hats Off
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