When iconic Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) on Saturday accepted a lifetime achievement award at the 57th Golden Horse Awards, everyone in the audience rose to their feet to offer rapturous applause.
During his career, Hou has made a name for himself on the international stage for his unique approach to filmmaking, and in May the New York Times said that he was Taiwan’s greatest director.
His award was, indeed, well deserved.
A characteristic of Hou’s movies is the way he frames details using a long lens, expressing the relationship between individuals and their environment. The emotions of the actors in a given space and time gradually play out under the scrutiny of a slowly moving lens.
This is Hou’s characteristic filmmaking aesthetic, unremittingly realistic, meticulous, with a great attention to detail, conforming absolutely to the historical context of the time in which the movie is set, like a 19th century European painting from the school of Realism. In his films, this is as true for interior shots as it is for sweeping vistas.
Hou’s insistence on realistic fidelity means that his movies forgo the roller-coaster pacing or dramatic tension they would in the hands of another director, and it is for this reason that he gets close to a realistic depiction of life.
Audiences are therefore asked to watch patiently, appreciate the visuals and absorb the atmosphere before the authentic emotional responses of the actors are revealed under the laconic gaze of the director’s lens.
The story lines of Hou’s movies A City of Sadness (悲情城市), A Time to Live, A Time to Die (童年往事), Dust in the Wind (戀戀風塵), A Summer at Grandpa’s (冬冬的假期) and The Boys from Fengkuei (風櫃來的人) depict the humdrum reality of everyday life, and do so without the dramatic tension in other movie plots.
In these movies, we are repeatedly invited to observe the characters eating meals. Sitting at the table with family or friends is an important part of everyday life in Taiwan. This is an authentic, realistic portrayal of life, devoid of drama, showing how normal people interact in the natural progression of their personal stories.
Among directors, Hou is perhaps the most faithful to his own sensibilities and cinematic aesthetic. His City of Sadness, starring female lead Hsin Shu-fen (辛素芬) — who plays the character Hinomi — and male lead Tony Leung (梁朝偉) from Hong Kong — who plays Lin Wen-ching (林文清) — serves as a good example.
Hinomi and Lin are seen in a dark room in the middle of the night, having just read a letter from a friend. The letter tells them that another friend had been shot and killed.
Hinomi buries her head in her hands, weeping, but the audience cannot make out her sobs: All we can hear is the sound of a baby climbing up to the table in an otherwise silent room, and the almost indiscernible sound of the child taking the letter in its hand.
The silently sobbing image of the female lead sitting in the dark room makes the scene all the more powerful. This is an example of the aesthetic power of Hou expressing human life in a realistic way, resorting to neither melodrama nor contrivance.
Hou’s 2015 work The Assassin (刺客聶隱娘), for which he was awarded “best director” at the Cannes Film Festival, replaces narrative structure with poetic imagery, taking the audience into the inner worlds of the characters, inviting them to join the emotional journeys each one takes so they can understand the progression of the story.
In terms of Hou’s filmmaking aesthetic, it can be regarded as his masterpiece.
A matter of minutes into the beginning of The Assassin, the monochrome film gives way to a mustard and ocher twilight lake scene, tranquil but for the booming sound of war drums. Set against a tranquil natural scene, the drums create an unsettling tension.
Hou uses color, sound and an ethereal scene to evoke a poignant, indistinct ambience, transporting the viewer into the inner world of Nie Yinniang (聶隱娘), the main character.
As the movie progresses, Hou uses changes in natural settings and sound to reflect the shifting emotions and tensions of the characters.
When Nie’s father, Nie Feng (聶峰), escorts his brother-in-law Tian Xing (田興) from his village, a flock of eagles flying among mountain peaks surrounding the tranquil, open grasslands through which they are proceeding serve to herald of coming dangers.
Having survived an attempt on their lives, the lens views the band of travelers, including Nie Feng and the mirror polisher, from a high altitude as they gradually make their way through the valley and into a dark cavern, lighting their way with fire torches.
All that can be heard in the near-silent darkness is the hissing of the flames and the clop clop of horseshoes on the tunnel floor. Once out of the cave, the scene opens up into a green expanse, reeds gently swaying in the breeze.
The changes in the natural terrain in the movie wonderfully depict the artist’s concept of what the characters are feeling.
In a movie, imagery carries the same importance as words do in a work of literature. Hou’s command of imagery and its power are unrivaled and astonishing to the beholder.
It is for this reason that Hou was presented with the lifetime achievement award.
Michael Lin is a retired diplomat who served in the US.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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