Cairo Station: Taiwanese Masters

The eighties will be remembered for two things: the fall of Berlin Wall and Taiwanese cinema winning multiple Golden Lions in Venice. Here are three choices from three Taiwanese Masters to remind us that cinema is only time and space.

悲情城市 (A City of Sadness)

Hou Hsiao Hsien, Taiwan. 1989.

Watch this movie if you want: large takes, intricate plot, masterfully crafted counterpoint between sound and image, Taiwanese rainy landscapes, 40 years of martial law, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, a Golden Lion.

Don’t watch if you don’t like: masterpieces, cities, sadness.

牯嶺街少年殺人事件 (A Brighter Summer Day)

Edward Yang, Taiwan. 1991.

An intimate and impossibly melancholic tale of coming of age between gang fights and juvenile love affairs. The style of Taipei in the early sixties and all the despair of the world concentrated in fours hours and 35mm. Sad as only adolescence could be, the adolescence of a nation.

愛情萬歲 (Vive l’amour)

Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan. 1994.

Alie(nation) and (auto)erotism of three lonely souls in not-so-stylish-anymore nineties hyper-capitalist Taipei. The Second New Wave presents to the West Tsai Ming-liang, who conquest Venice with his parable of emptiness: no emotions, no regrets, no watermelons. Disclaimer: there will be long-takes.

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