It seems like slow-burning, suffocating family dramas of despair, sorrow and redemption are in fashion in Taiwanese cinema these days. It worked with films like last year’s Golden Horse darling A Sun (陽光普照) and July’s Wild Sparrow (野雀之詩), but not every production warrants this treatment.
It’s not that Dear Tenant (親愛的房客) isn’t deserving of its six Golden Horse nominations. The story of a gay man selflessly caring for his dead lover’s elderly mother and young son tenderly explores the limits of unconditional love and the judgment and misunderstanding society still exhibits towards homosexuality — and from a man who isn’t directly related to the family.
“If I were a woman, and my husband died but I stayed with his family to care for them, would you be asking the same questions?” Chien-yi (Mo Tzu-yi, 莫子儀) asks in one scene.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Not only does nobody understand why he’s doing what he’s doing — even after he reveals the details of the relationship — he’s being accused of murdering his late partner’s mother (Chen Shu-fang, 陳淑芳) and adopting the son (Pai Run-yin, 白潤音) to claim their house and property.
Chien-yi’s lingering love and regret toward his lost love is apparent and easily understandable, but his relationship with the mother and son are much more complex and even more moving as the parties grapple with their feelings toward each other. On the surface, he’s just a tenant, but there’s so much bubbling underneath. Besides these different faces of love, the film also tackles jealousy, forgiveness and ultimately, setting oneself free.
Director Cheng Yu-chieh (鄭有傑) treats Chien-yi’s struggles and subdued emotionality with great care. The homosexuality is not overstated or intentionally highlighted, its more just a matter of fact, an essential part of the tale Cheng is trying to tell. The discrimination Chien-yi faces is not overt, but deeply ingrained in Taiwan’s patriarchal society and it’s these constant microagressions stemming from a lack of education and understanding that often hurt the most.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
The bleak cinematography and use of a minimal soundtrack with much silence fits Chien-yi’s immensely restrained, yet passionate, personality well, and Mo delivers a delicate, nuanced performance that hits just the right notes for his role. He fully deserves his Best Actor award at July’s Taipei Film Festival.
Chen and Pai are no slouches either, with Pai echoing Mo’s persona, deftly portraying a shy and reserved kid who is emotionally intelligent and wise beyond his years. Whether he is aware of the relationship between Chien-yi and his father doesn’t matter as long as they love him, and it’s an acute statement in a society that is still arguing about LGBTQ education in schools and whether same-sex couples should raise children.
Chen’s character is sick and in constant pain, and misses her deceased son dearly, but she still manages not to seem pitiful and retains her dignity, which is also not easy to convey.
The problem is that despite the complex themes and original topic, the story is actually rather straightforward and it’s not hard to guess what really happened despite Cheng dragging the scenes out to create a sense of suspense. Some sections go on for what seems like forever while the results are already painfully obvious, although there is one twist that is worth the wait.
While this treatment is atmospheric and adds to the characters’ anguish and desperation, it sacrifices intensity and edge, and ultimately the attention of the less patient viewers. The story is still strong enough overall to keep most people in their seats, but a tighter edit would have kept the momentum going throughout such a powerful story.
Other than that one flaw, it’s a movie that’s well worth watching and probably will win big at next months’ Golden Horse Awards.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
RSS