Much is left unsaid in Father to Son, but as relationships between fathers and sons go, especially in Asian culture where affection is not always openly expressed, how much can be explicit?
The storylines and relations seem complicated in this poignant, subtle drama as it follows a 60-year-old, still rather dashing Fan Pao-te (Michael Huang, 黃仲崑), who falls ill at the beginning of the film and tries to come to terms with mortality and closure, especially with his father, who abandoned the family when he was young to seek his fortune in Japan.
Fan and his son (Fu Meng-po, 傅孟柏) are the focus of the main plot, but the film also spotlights many other characters while flashing back throughout Fan’s childhood and young adulthood. The parallels among fathers and sons, especially the relationships — or lack thereof — are apparent and it’s clear that history repeats itself in this small southern town. But fate can also be changed.
Photo courtesy of atmovies.com
The cinematography is stunning, and director Hsiao Ya-chuan (蕭雅全) chooses his backdrops well. Although the story is set mostly on one street in a sleepy, nondescript town, it fully makes use of the notion of being stuck in time with an old hotel, a traditional laundry shop with a sign emblazoned with black and gold calligraphy and a Japanese era-style hospital with terrazzo floors and long, narrow hallways. Even the hostess club that Fan and his buddy frequent, the roadside stall where they drink or Fan’s hardware store are shot in a way that creates an air of the fantastic even though it’s clear that this is reality.
Is this 2018 or 1987? Although the flashbacks are made clear in black and white, sometimes it is hard to tell until someone whips out the latest model smartphone — and then things become blurred again as people are seen smoking in offices and restaurants when Fan visits Japan. Maybe it doesn’t matter, as some things simply don’t change no matter what the era.
Through Fan’s father, the story also stretches back to post-war Taiwan, depicting a society that still retains some of its old Japanese connections, and where people would prefer to head overseas to make it big than stay at home as a nobody.
Photo courtesy of atmovies.com
This is Hsiao’s third feature film since 2010’s Taipei Exchange (36個故事), continuing his poetic style of never directly tackling the subject but instead telling the story through delicate sentiments and subtle relationships. Although the film seems all over the place at the beginning, as the plot progresses, nothing is superfluous as there’s a whole backstory spanning many decades that slowly ties things together.
Although Fan chose a simple life as a hardware store owner and amateur inventor, he’s highly intelligent and deeply philosophical, making for a complex character that’s intriguing from the very beginning as he heads out to fix a friend’s electrical problem with his tools around his belt as if he were a cop heading to solve a crime.
His counterpart is his buddy A-kao (Long Shao-hua, 龍劭華), the carefree owner of a fruit store, who, although is not a major part of the film, does a brilliant job in providing chuckles and dragging Fan into his shenanigans. His elated expression when Fan, who had abstained from drinking since he fell ill, finally took a sip of beer, is priceless.
Fu also delivers a good performance as the son, and even though father and son do not seem to exchange many words, their affection and love for each other are clearly felt.
Hsiao is indeed deserving of best director at this year’s Taipei Film Awards, where the film also picked up best original score (Summer Lei, 雷光夏 and Chris Hou, 侯志堅) and best art direction. It’s a movie that’s meant to be felt and pondered upon, leaving the audience for much reflection long after the curtain draws.
This is the year that the demographic crisis will begin to impact people’s lives. This will create pressures on treatment and hiring of foreigners. Regardless of whatever technological breakthroughs happen, the real value will come from digesting and productively applying existing technologies in new and creative ways. INTRODUCING BASIC SERVICES BREAKDOWNS At some point soon, we will begin to witness a breakdown in basic services. Initially, it will be limited and sporadic, but the frequency and newsworthiness of the incidents will only continue to accelerate dramatically in the coming years. Here in central Taiwan, many basic services are severely understaffed, and
Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 Of the more than 3,000km of sugar railway that once criss-crossed central and southern Taiwan, just 16.1km remain in operation today. By the time Dafydd Fell began photographing the network in earnest in 1994, it was already well past its heyday. The system had been significantly cut back, leaving behind abandoned stations, rusting rolling stock and crumbling facilities. This reduction continued during the five years of his documentation, adding urgency to his task. As passenger services had already ceased by then, Fell had to wait for the sugarcane harvest season each year, which typically ran from
It is a soulful folk song, filled with feeling and history: A love-stricken young man tells God about his hopes and dreams of happiness. Generations of Uighurs, the Turkic ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have played it at parties and weddings. But today, if they download it, play it or share it online, they risk ending up in prison. Besh pede, a popular Uighur folk ballad, is among dozens of Uighur-language songs that have been deemed “problematic” by Xinjiang authorities, according to a recording of a meeting held by police and other local officials in the historic city of Kashgar in
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was out in force in the Taiwan Strait this week, threatening Taiwan with live-fire exercises, aircraft incursions and tedious claims to ownership. The reaction to the PRC’s blockade and decapitation strike exercises offer numerous lessons, if only we are willing to be taught. Reading the commentary on PRC behavior is like reading Bible interpretation across a range of Christian denominations: the text is recast to mean what the interpreter wants it to mean. Many PRC believers contended that the drills, obviously scheduled in advance, were aimed at the recent arms offer to Taiwan by the
RSS