Prima Donna (當家花旦)
A documentary following the preparations for the 15th anniversary performance by the Snow White Entertaining Troupe (白雪綜藝劇團), an amateur troupe that has established itself as a nonpareil of local drag shows. The four men who are at the center of the show, all have daytime jobs, but when it comes to celebrating 15 years behind the footlights, they take every aspect, from the shade of eyeliner to the choreographing of the light show, with the utmost seriousness. The enduring popularity of this drag show provides unexpected insight into normally conservative Taiwan, and although there is something of the behind the scenes concert movie about it, Prima Donna is much more about being, and expressing, who you are.
The Triangle Land (幸福三角地)
A founding figure of Taiwan New Wave cinema, director-cinematographer Chen Kun-ho (陳坤厚) made several important works including Growing Up (小畢的故事, 1983), His Matrimony (結婚, 1985) and Osmanthus Alley (桂花巷, 1987). His most recent film is a venture in nostalgia for a rural Taiwan that is gradually disappearing, telling the story of a young boy growing up in a dysfunctional family who realizes that he must grow up fast if he is to escape the cycle of acrimony and shame that surrounds him and win the love of a new US-born student at his school. Heavy on sentiment and manipulative in manner, the cast list of young celebrities will still draw audiences.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Beasts of the Southern Wild has elicited words like “wondrous” and “magnificent” from critics, many of whom regard it as one of the best films of 2012. The heroine, Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis), is destined to be an icon of young adult culture together with the likes of Kaitness Everdeen of Hunger Games and Princess Mirida of Brave. Hushpuppy lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry) in a small community at the end of the world. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack, temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. Hushpuppy has to be strong to face these dangers as she embarks on a journey to find her mother. The flood of contemporary hot topics, from climate change to the importance of family might prove too much for some, but the film manages to avoid the worst pitfalls of moralizing tales.
Monsieur Lazhar
Nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 2012 Oscars, Monsieur Lazhar has been sweeping up awards on the art-house festival circuit. The film explores the complex relationship between an Algerian immigrant, who is hired to replace a popular teacher who committed suicide in her classroom, and his students, teasing through the complex and fragile bonds of trust and respect that exist in a classroom. It also looks inward into the title character’s own experience of profound grief. The leading role is taken by Mohamed Fellag, whose performance has won lavish praise from critics for its sensitivity and humor (Fellag is a comedian and himself an exile from Algeria), and the film, written and directed by Philippe Falardeau gains much of its power from not asking specific questions, but rather simply looking at a situation with sympathy and humility.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
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