Visiting Taipei to promote his comeback feature Springtime in a Small Town (小城之春), Tian Zhuangzhuang (田壯壯) was inundated with questions about his erratic career at a press conference Tuesday.
For a filmmaker who had been praised as "the most talented, outstanding film director in contemporary China" and the "front man of the Fifth Generation filmmakers in China," Tian has been banned from making films for the last 10 years.
It has been tough for the filmmaker, who studied with the likes of Zhang Yimou (張藝謀), Chen Kaige (陳凱歌) and Li Shaohong (李少紅) at the Beijing Film Academy. "[During the 10 years], the most unbearable thing is to be in the film studio watching other people make movies. It's like you're actually healthy but must stay in the hospital."
PHOTO: GROUP POWER
Tian started making films in 1981. The Blue Kite (1991), a film set during the Cultural Revolution, was highly praised by international critics but only brought him trouble back home. The film participated in the Tokyo Film Festival without government authorization and, although it picked up the Tokyo Grand Prix, Tian was blocked from further filmmaking.
After a 10-year absence, Tian has chosen to remake the 1948 classic by director Fei Mu (費穆). "Making this film felt like communicating with a master," said Tian. "I never stopped learning from Fei Mu. That's what made it possible to restart my career as a director."
Tian's remake has received widespread praise, and picked up the San Marco Prize (best film of Counter Current) in last year's Venice Film Festival.
Set in 1940s post-war China, Springtime in a Small Town is a drama about a love triangle. In a ruinous small town, there lives the family of a physically ill former aristocrat. His elegant and dignified wife faces the burden taking care of her husband and the boredom of her existence. Everything changes when a young and spirited doctor comes to visit.
"I had the idea [of remaking the film] in 2000. The millennium was supposed to be a celebration of hope. But I just felt there was still a kind of fear in people's hearts. When I watched the original film I was especially touched by the delicate and complex emotions expressed in it," said Tian.
For his new start, many old friends came to help Tian, including old classmate Li Shaohong, who served as his executive producer, and Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) who lent his cinematographer Mark Li Ping-bin (李屏賓) to take charge of the lens. Oscar winner Tim Yip took care of set and costume design.
On the first day of shooting, sitting in the director's chair again after 10 years, watching his top-notch crew assemble, the tough-looking Tian was moved to tears.
The actors in the film are rather young, although the acting is adept. "He is an artist with much subtlety. But in the studio, he's like a father who takes care of you without your awareness," said actors Hu Jing-fan (胡靖釩) and Wu Jun (吳軍), who star in the film.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and