Fri, Apr 26, 2002 page7

• Mirroring the lovely absurdity of Taipei

  Director Hung Hung focuses his camera on life in Taiwan's capital city

  • By Yu Sen-lun / STAFF REPORTER
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  For director and writer Hung Hung (鴻鴻), many of his works are about recording the life and the scenery of Taipei City. "I am a typical urban adult. Taipei is my air, water and sun," said the 38-year-old, whose original name is Yen Hung-ya (閻鴻亞).

  A playwright and director for 15 years, Hung has excelled at combining human emotion with his intellectual ideas, specifically in the lives of Taipei residents. So when shifting roles to film director, Hung brought his wit and sensitivity to his second and third works, Human Comedy (人間喜劇) and A Garden in the Sky (空中花園).

  The audiences' non-stop laughter during Human Comedy's tour of European film festivals was proof of his special talent. He may not be Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), with his particular film language and intense look at a period of time. Nor is he similar to Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), who sharply and boldly looks at the loneliness and alienation of people living in Taipei. Hung is more like a poet with a warmer look at the city and its people.

  

  Director Hung Hung.

  PHOTO: LES MOUTONS SANS SOUCI

  The film's amiability earned it the Audience Prize at the 2001 Festival of the Three Continents, in Nantes, France. It won Best Film at this year's Muscat Film Festival, in Oman, and was also selected as the opening film at the Festival Cinemas d'Asie de Vesoul, in France, where the festival organizer described it as breaking the stereotype of Asian films, which are usually seen as "artistic" but slow.

  "I was consciously trying to present the colorful side of Taipei ... with different layers and thicknesses. I intended to give [the film] a cordial feeling," Hung said.

  But neither Human Comedy nor A Garden in the Sky are conventional comedies. Instead, they are more about tragedy and absurdity. Human Comedy weaves four loosely adapted, updated Confucian moral fables (The Book of 24 Filial Pieties, 二十四孝) into a sensitive, often comical portrait of contemporary Taipei. A shoe shop salesgirl dwells in her fantasy world, out of touch with the people around her. Her sole pleasure is her passion for Hong Kong film star and singer Tony Leung (梁朝偉).

  One day, crushed by the news that he has cancelled his long-awaited Taipei concert, she becomes so distracted she doesn't even notice that one of her customers may have been Tony Leung himself.

  A-Xing rehearses an avant-garde play for a director dying of AIDS. Asked to perform a nude scene, he must choose between satisfying his demanding director and facing his conservative mother, who will be in the audience.

  Cramped space and cockroaches send one battling couple on a comical quest for a new flat and "the good life." Unable to find an affordable flat within Taipei, they look outside the city. A savvy real estate agent named Darren nearly gets them to sign for an apartment in a remote and expensive hi-rise project, but the stress of house hunting reveals striking differences in the couple's respective visions of "the good life" and they start to quarrel.

  Meanwhile, Darren faces down a raging typhoon to rescue his ex-wife. Although recently divorced, he is finding it difficult to get away from his former wife, Caixia, who is suffering from a host of psychosomatic illnesses that appear to be caused by her desire to prolong her involvement with Darren.

  "For many people, sacrifice is not tragic. They don't even deem [dying] as a form of sacrifice. Yet, such `ignorance' is what makes them seem noble and beautiful. This says to me that ancient Chinese fables and contemporary lives in fact share the same absurdities." Hung said.

  Hung said that his idea for Human Comedy was taken from a painting based on The Book of 24 Filial Pieties. "When I looked at the paintings, these old stories seemed to have new meaning to me. They are all about a simple kind of obsession, and are similar to many people's experiences," he said.

  The film is also Hung's tribute to late theater director Tian Chi-yuan (田啟元) who died of AIDS. In the film, four male performers rehearse a production of Tian's White Tide, which was based on the ancient Chinese story of White Snake, in which a man falls in love with and a beautiful serpent-woman who is eventually destroyed by a Buddhist priest. This controvertial play was Tian's allegory for discrimination against homosexuality. And it is now replayed in the film.

  If the more dramatic Human Comedy offers a realistic look at Taipei, then the 71-minute digital film A Garden in the Sky looks at Taipei from a fantasy angle. Using a semi-documentary style, Hung used a street-interview situation to ask people about their relationships with their clothes.

  In a department store, there are various faces and body types staring down the camera murmuring about their love-hate relationships with the clothes: brothers and sisters wearing hand-me-downs from their deceased mother, a cultural theorist talking about clothing fetishes, a man with an underwear fetish sharing his fantasy, and also Hung's father, a clothing manufacturer, discussing the rise and fall of Taiwan's clothing manufacturing industry.

  Hung vividly presents the intriguing role of clothing and fashion, the frontispiece of an individual's emotions and desire, but also the thing which confines and limits their bodies. A Garden in the Sky looks like modern theater played out on human bodies as the stage.

  The film is also like a carnival given Hung's poetic, experimental film style. Several shots represent the peculiar scenes in Taipei: the numerous shoe shops in Hsimenting; the crowded hillside residences near the outskirts of Taipei; the city soaked in rain and wind during the typhoon season; and the old houses on Taipei's Tihua street.

  "I met Taiwanese people in France after screenings of the films. They all said they really wanted to go back to Taipei. It is indeed a lovely city," Hung said.

  Both Human Comedy and A Garden in the Sky can be seen starting tomorrow at the Majestic Theater. Beginning May 4, Human Comedy will have English subtitles.

  For your information

  Human Comedy

  Directed by Hung Hung, with Chang Ling-hsien (張令嫻), Wen Chih-xing (溫吉興) and Chao Tzi-chiang (趙自強), rated G, running time: 117 minutes. In Mandarin, with English subtitles.

  A Garden in the Sky

  Directed by Hung Hung, with Vicky Chiang (蔣薇華), Lee Chun-chieh (李俊傑) and Tsai Chen-liang (蔡政良), rated G, running time: 71 minutes. In Mandarin, with English subtitles.
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