童年往事 | A Time to Live, a Time to Die

Hou Xiaoxian’s overwhelmingly moving film is at least 70% autobiographical: these are remembered scenes from his own mischievous childhood and near-delinquent adolescence, and the fact that he speaks the opening and closing voice-overs himself confirms the intimacy and candour of the memories. But this is also the story of an entire generation, the generation of Mainland Chinese who settled in Taiwan in the late 1940s and then found themselves unable to return home after the Communist victory of 1949. A story then, of displaced persons and displaced emotions, in which traditional family bonds suffer the pressures of exile and social change and begin to crack under the strain. It’s a story never before told on film, and certainly never visualised in images of such measured warmth and beauty.

Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou | Starring : Feng Tien, Fang Mei, Ru-Yun Tang, Ai Hsiao, Ann-Shuin Yiu | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Torino Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

海滩的一天 | That Day, on the Beach

Shot by Christopher Doyle, this contemporary epic about the position of women in Taiwanese society helped change the face of Taiwanese film. Two women – Lin Chia-li and Tan – meet after many years. Tan, a famous concert pianist, was once engaged to Lin Chia-li’s brother, but parental opposition broke up the romance; Lin Chia-li, on the other hand, defied her parents and married for love. Her marriage is far from happy however. As with Yang’s other films, the characters are paralyzed by the conflicting forces of modernity and tradition, a battle that wages both outside and within them, especially in the case of Lin Chia-li. Her rejection of a tradition she saw as oppressive has only left her feeling strangely empty. For many critics, That Day, on the Beach is the widest ranging look at what it means to be a woman in contemporary Taiwan. “The subtlety of Yang and Chang merge together to form an irresistible emotional force”

Directed by Edward Yang | Starring : Sylvia Chang, Terry Hu, Ming Hsu, Lieh Li, Fang Mei | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival