Ironically, the reason for Wu's choice lies in the film's attempt to reach a wider audience. The director believes artists should take a more discreet approach to their work if they want to appeal to the mainstream, which means not using music to indicate how moviegoers should feel, not exploiting their feelings nor underestimating their intelligence.
"Whoever says that the audience can't understand is a liar ... . It's the capitalistic division of labor that tells us to leave the thinking to artists ... . The elite echelons of society control and format our ways of thinking. They have a better grasp of abstract language than ordinary people, and that's all," Wu said.
Because Wu insists in having complete control over his work, he had a hard time finding backing from investors and distributors for this project. What Wu thought would be an easy film turned into a four-year endeavor that left him in debt and served as a hard-learned lesson, which he feels affirmed his belief that although people think they are free, the opposite is true.
Except for a few film festivals in the US and Hong Kong, both international and national film festivals haven't embraced Amour-Legende as it's a mainstream film mixed with art-house elements. This unfamiliar combination confuses and alienates the average cinemagoer, Wu said.
"A couple of European curators told me that they like the film a lot but just don't know where to put it since it doesn't look like a Taiwanese movie. It's alarmingly frightening to learn that the look of Taiwan and its cinema is predetermined," Wu said.
For his next project, The End of the War (戰爭終了), a story adapted from a sci-fi novel by Taiwanese author Chih Ta-wei (紀大偉) that has been ready for shooting since 1999, Wu said he has come up with a new approach to filming.
The plan is simple: He will start shooting when there is money, time and a crew, and take a break when resources dry up.
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