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The Films of Tsai Ming-Liang in The Context of The New Taiwanese Cinema
The Films of Tsai Ming-Liang in The Context of The New Taiwanese Cinema
The films of Tsai Ming-Liang in the context of the new Taiwanese Cinema
Taiwans rapid transformation resulted in a collective character that tends towards reflection and nostalgia for the old life, and a certain dissatisfaction with
contemporary life and modernisation" -- Chiao Hsiung Ping, The Distinct Taiwanese and Hongkong Cinemas
Much of the New Taiwanese Cinema has been a search for identity. In Asian film, this brand of soul-searching often leads to the countryside to find a more "authentic" or "pure"
remnant of one's culture in the face of encroaching westernisation - the explosion in consumer culture in the urban areas. Caught in China's orbit - Taiwan is a satellite state to a
monolithic motherland - both homeland and aggressor. This tension with China is related to the pervasive insecurity and estrangement in Taiwanese movies. The lack of closure
to its conflict with communist China is a source of trauma evident in Taiwan's national consciousness - a paranoid militaristic Government enforcing martial law until 1987.
Faced with censorship and repression, caught between east and west, modernity and tradition, the Taiwanese adopted a pragmatic materialism and existentialism. The latent
anxiety of reconciling rapid socioeconomic change with a new Chinese identity was manifested primarily through individual conflict with traditional ethical/moral values. In
Tsai Ming-Liang's films vandalism, homosexuality, drunkeness and deliquency are heralds of a new age where cultural praxis are no longer clear, where role models are rebels
and self-gratification is the new religion. Rebels of the Neon God could have been retitled "kitchen, restaurant, bathroom, bedroom" as the characters spend their entire time in
orbit between these spaces. According to Tsai and other new wave filmmakers there is nothing else to do in 'modern Taiwan' except eat, shit, sleep and fuck - a deep-rooted
ambivalence and pessimism found even in more populist fare like Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman and Edward Yang's Mah-Jong.
The New Cinema is strongly oriented around direct reference to political and social taboos. Behind this phenomenon is the lifting of martial law in 1987 and the political, social, and
diplomatic reforms that followed, as well as growing demands for more radical reforms from civilians." -- Yeh Yueh-Yu
"Taiwanese films are the products of reflection and nostalgia by intellectuals in their 30s and 40s, hence they emphasise introspection and
restraint, a lyrical style based on long takes and a slow rhythm. In contrast Hongkong films are a synthesis of chaos and energy, and
techniques such as fragmenting extreme close-ups of the body, rapid montage and spatial and temporal disorder ... Completely different from
the works of the middle class creative temperament of the Taiwanese film artists, Hongkong hero and kungfu films are a low-class cinema"
Taiwan found its niche in social realism and black comedy, unable to be as frivolous or naively escapist as Hongkong cinema. Tsai's bleak unforgiving films portray individuals as lost, insect-like in their movements
and feelings, caught in a paradox where bodily functions have been coopted by the environment - the state. Their lives are banal and voyeuristic - dominated by basic bodily fuctions - the need to eat, the need to shit,
the need for sex, the need for movement - just cruising around on scooters or wandering the city on foot - waiting for something to happen, waiting for godot. The motorcycle becomes fetishised for its potential for
movement - the feeling it imparts to the riders that they are going somewhere, even if its aimlessly. They seek escape from the oppressive metropolis - a desolate architectural nightmare where the nights seem endless
and consumerism has become as monotonous as everything else. For Taipei's youth only on a scooter does there seem to be any hope, a possibility for growth, for escape.
"My sets are realistic, a bit run-down and murky. And it's always raining, which makes my characters somewhat aloof from their environment ... They are romantic but the environment
is out of key with this romanticism. They believe they can hide themselves in a safe world behind the door and put the garbage outside which they don't see. But the world isn't so safe
inside. Danger creeps in all the same, like the unending rain, the strange diseases etc. Doors, elevators, staircases are repeatedly seen, reflecting the hopes of the characters of
escaping from their enlocked circumstances." -- Tsai Ming-Liang in the Production Notes to The Hole.
Influenced by the Western modernist movement, the narrative structure in these films is more fragmented than linear, the editing is more obtrusive than
continuous, and sentimental expression has been suspended to block out emotional identification. Off-screen sound has been used frequently to convey a
sense of alienation (especially in the films of Hou, Yang and Tsai); the frequent use of close-ups is replaced by long takes and long shots that make for a more distanced perspective." -
- Yeh Yueh-Yu
Right: The 'man upstairs' contemplating the romantic possibilities of the hole in his floor in The Hole
The sense of repression, entropy and contamination, reflects the lack of certainty which underlies Taiwan's fragile independence - not officially recognised as a sovereign
state by the international community, threatened by the occasional missile crisis. In Tsai's films, Taipei attains the decrepit ambience of a city under siege, composed of
fatigued concrete, grimy walls, peeling wallpaper and hazy skies filled with fumes - by day the city is crumbling and congested, at night seedy and desperate.
Fluoresecent lights, endless rain and decaying architecture are its visual motifs. Whereas the city of Hongkong is celebrated in its movies, Tsai's Taiwan is condemned to
disease and desertion.
"The image of the 21st century that drifted out of my eyes was one of unending rain ... I think the world environment, particularly that of Asia, was
destroyed in the 20th century. Whether I am in Taiwan or in the country of my birth, Malaysia, I feel that the situation is at its most serious in these
two developing countries. Why am I so pessimistic? If you live in Taiwan, you will naturally feel pessimism. We paid a heavy price for the take-off of
Taiwan's economy over the past ten years. People have to live with crime and violence, political conflict and corruption, the serious pollution of the
environment, alienation and growing friction in personal relationships. All these are almost permanent fixtures of people's lives. The most serious
problem, I believe, is the sense of anxiety and insecurity in people and their loss of confidence and trust in the government. Therefore I think the future will be fraught with suspicion
and tragedy." -- Tsai Ming-Liang in the Production Notes to The Hole.
Left: One of the hilarious Grace Chang cabaret sequences from The Hole
Despite this pessimism, Tsai's films are characterised by an irrepressible sense of mischief. These comic elements burst through the dark envelope of each film,
maintaining the hope for intimacy and happiness in sudden, almost random acts of inspiration. For example, The Hole is regularly interrupted with surreal cabaret
sequences, escapist fantasies of romance between the 'man upstairs' and the 'woman downstairs' set to Tsai's favourite Grace Chang songs. These interludes are glittering
examples of cinematic dexterity and Taiwanese hybridity - incorporating hilariously kitchy elements with chorus girls, cocktail dresses and fire extinguishers, shifting
between mandarin and english, introducing subtext, contrast and virtuoso elements into Tsai's otherwise restrained, low-key narrative. The actual hole between their
apartments acts as an umbilical cord between the estranged residents, facillitating their bizarre interaction and final fantasy meeting. And whilst Tsai is careful to frame
even these fantasies in the urbane - shooting them in elevators, on staircases and balconies - they present some comic and colourful relief from the drudgery of his
beautifully shot, but bleak mise en scene. Like his Cantonese compatriot, Wong Kar Wai, Tsai also uses coincidence and criss-crossing paths to suggest a fate for each
person, and hence an underlying logic and pattern to their lives, a guiding hand and subtle optimism they are merely unaware of. Ultimately it is the humanism present in
the camera's gaze and the playfulness in plot construction that makes a Tsai Ming Liang film so eminently insightful and entertaining - not just commentary but comedy.
"Contemporary Taiwan, where graveyards are full but apartment houses empty, is bulldozing its social architectural and spiritual past - forcing friends and lovers into a constant state of
directionless motion. There is, nevertheless, a passionate determination throughout Tsai's work that these characters arrive -somehow, sometime - in each other's arms. But even if
gratification is forever postponed, the waiting is imbued with a kind of tantric glee: though the sense of urban, architectural nausea serves mainly to place potholes in its pilgrims paths,
the ways they manage to skirt and dodge and eventually collide or nearly miss one another is effected with an almost choreographic grace." -- Chuck Stephens, Film Comment
References
Chiao Hsiung-Ping, The Distinct Taiwanese and Hong Kong Cinemas Perspectives on Chinese Cinema, ed. Berry C., BFI, London, 1991
Jameson F., Remapping Taipei, New Chinese Cinemas ed. Browne, Pickwicz, Sobchack, Yau Cambridge University Press, NY, 1994 p117
Stephens C., Intersection: Tsai Ming-liang's yearning bike boys and heartsick heroines Film Comment, Sep-Oct 1996 v32 n5 p20
Tsai Ming-Liang, The Hole: Production Notes and Interview Arc Light Films, Taiwan, 1998
Yeh Yueh-Yu, Nornes A.M., Narrating National Sadness: Cinematic Mapping and Hypertextual Dispersion from CinemaSPACE, University of Southern California, 1994
http://cinemaspace.berkeley.edu/Papers/CityOfSadness/ (accessed July 1999)