A Summer at Grandpa's

1984, Taiwan, directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

The mid-1980s produced some very fine coming-of-age films from very varied locations -- Bille August's Zappa and Twist and Shout, Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog, or Hou's delicate film, based in part on his screenwriter's memories of a summer spent away from home. As with My Life as a Dog, there's a parental illness in the background, casting an immediate shadow over events, though for the most part the carefree overrides the storm clouds, with the children testing the boundaries of their independence while gathering an understanding of the somewhat different boundaries that apply to adults. Like all of Hou's films, the pace is quite leisurely, with the director allowing scenes to expand in ways that permit the viewer to spend a good deal of time contemplating scenery, sound, and the often picturesque details of small-town life in which the kids make their own schedules. Absolutely absorbing throughout, with Hou drawing lovely performances from the younger cast members.

The Boys from Fengkuei

1983, Taiwan, directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Very much a film where we see Hou's style coming into being, in particular with respect to the measured pace and the careful framing -- especially in the urban sequences, where the use of doorways (and other openings) or balconies foreshadows his later use of space. However, he also manages to capture a good deal of the vibrancy -- both good and bad -- of urban life: the film is certainly not stately in its progression. The main distraction is a classical soundtrack that's without subtlety -- very obvious choices, though apparently this is a step up from the film's original pop backing.

A Brighter Summer Day

1991, Taiwan, directed by Edward Yang

An extraordinarily ambitious film that aims to paint a picture of an entire generation of (urban) Taiwanese still adjusting to live after migration from the Chinese mainland, drawing liberally from Edward Yang's own youth in Taiwan -- the Chinese title for the film makes reference to a tragedy that is woven into the latter stages of the film, and which transfixed Yang and his peers at the time. A degree of historical knowledge, such as that provided by the booklet accompanying the Criterion edition of the film, greatly helps with understanding of Yang's goals, in particular the unusual, loose-limbed first hour or so during which the film gradually coalesces around one protagonist while nonetheless retaining a sense of the broader fresco.* Indeed, the film is novelistic in the best sense, weaving a variety of destinies together to exceptional effect.

The English language title emphasizes the fascination that overseas, and particularly American, culture held for young Taiwanese of the 1950s and 1960s, just as postwar Germans delved into the depths of American popular culture, as in the films of Wim Wenders (like Wenders, Yang suggests a deep degree of alienation in the postward populace, an absence of emotional engagement that underpins the film's bursts of violence). Yang is looking back at his own youth, but there's little trace of nostalgia -- even when the film is lit with a wonderful warmth, there's often a sharp contrast with the events or words onscreen, while Yang makes exceptional use of naturalistic lighting effects during one of the film's most bewildering and brutal sequences.

* I also found John Anderson's 2005 book Edward Yang, published by the University of Illinois Press, very informative. Yang's untimely death in 2007 means that Anderson's book stands as a comprehensive career survey.

The Assassin

2015, Taiwan/China/Hong Kong, directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Coming immediately on the heels of a viewing of Come Drink With Me, Hou's film was almost shocking in is use of aspect ratio: gone, at least in the early going, is the wonderful width of the Shawscope frame, in favour of the Academy frame, although this quickly creates a sense of intimacy that's key to the film's atmosphere (and which proves quite effective even used outdoors). The atmosphere and texture are key here; the narrative is tricky to grasp, especially on a first viewing, and I found the brief bursts of action relatively confusing, whereas the use of light and framing are often hypnotic, with a colour palette that sometimes recalls Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, perhaps because both directors were interested in the effects of natural light.

Three Times

2005, Taiwan, directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Though it's tempting to embrace the differences between the three episodes that make up Hou Hsiao-hsien's film, it's really only in viewing them as a whole that the director's ambition becomes apparent, exploring the changes both in Taiwanese society and that society's attitudes to relationships from the early twentieth century to today. He experiments, too, with different aesthetics, employing handheld cameras in the final, modern, sequence that contrast sharply with the smooth grace of the first two segments. The middle sequence is set in 1911, and Hou films it as a silent, with extensive intertitles (as a consequence, it's easily the wordiest of the three stories), but he doesn't make any other concessions to the filming techniques of 1911: he shoots in lush colour, with beautifully serene camerawork. While the decision to shoot the film without sound (except for music, which sometimes recalls the soundtrack for Jane Campion's The Piano) initially seems distracting, it slowly creates a means by which to appreciate the extreme ritualisation of upper-class life in Taiwan of that era; the lack of aural distractions is combined with an intense focus on the details of daily routine.

It's in the film's first sequence, though, the the film comes most fully alive, for a charmingly slight tale of tentative love, a film that starts out in a pool hall - a place filled with its own rituals and rhythms - and ends up on the road, as a young man (Chen Chang) searches for the object of his affection. As the segment progresses, Chang allows his character's mask to slip, allowing for wonderful moments of warmth that reveal the growing depth of his love, never more so than the smile that flashes across his face when his girlfriend's mother provides him with her daughter's whereabouts. The entire sequence captures the giddy sense of self-containment that accompanies any burgeoning romance: the outside world, so fraught in many films set in the mid-1960s, seems irrelevant here, its challenges easily overcome as the two characters fall into step beside one another.