From an outsider’s perspective, things are quite grim for the Chen family. Set in perpetually-rainy rural Yilan County near the beach, this subdued drama revolves around youngest son A-liang (Tung Liang-yu, 董亮宇), who performs odd jobs and devotes himself to taking care of his mentally disabled elder brother A-ting (Chung Shang-ting, 鍾尚庭). He’s also a talented artist whose bedroom walls are plastered with his drawings.
Meanwhile, eldest son A-wei (Wu Wei-han, 吳威翰) engages in questionable activities and rarely comes home, and the stern, silent yet sensitive father A-ming (Chen Ming, 陳銘) tries his best to keep the family afloat while his wife is in the hospital.
The natural beauty of their surroundings is mostly littered with trash, and A-liang and A-ting spend their days playing baseball among the debris, catching fish in the dirty pond and scavenging junk washed up on the beach.
Photo courtesy of Golden Horse Film Festival
But somehow, their situation does not come off as pitiful nor sad. They may not seem to have much to look forward to, but they’re not exactly struggling either. Like his previous film Synapses (那個我最親愛的陌生人, reviewed on Nov. 28, 2019), which deals with dementia and memory loss, director Chang Tso-chi (張作驥) presents the story through extended vignettes of the family’s daily interactions. Flotsam and Jetsam (夏日天空的那匹紅馬) goes more into detail with their mundane activities and has even less of a clear plot, but what’s different is that it doesn’t dwell on hopelessness and despair. It’s even heart-warming at times.
Nothing dramatic happens to the family and the characters don’t express themselves very well, if at all, but it’s clear that they care deeply about each other. The father and two younger sons eat dinner together every day, and while the conversation mostly consists of things like “eat more vegetables, don’t just eat meat” and “don’t drink too much alcohol,” their bonds are evident. Even the wayward eldest son tries to provide for them and shows up when it’s time to visit the bedridden mother.
One of the more poignant scenes is when A-zhen (Fox Lee, 李亞臻), a young woman who barges into their lives, attends A-ting’s birthday party and expresses her envy for what the family has. And the brief conversation with A-liang that ensues is one of the very few moments where he talks about how he really feels. A-ting gets drunk that night and poops his pants, and while A-liang scolds him and grumbles, he still cleans up after his brother and they head out together again the following day, with A-ting clutching onto the back of A-liang’s shirt.
Photo courtesy of Golden Horse Film Festival
A-zhen’s side-story of longing and searching provides some drama and distraction from the monotony of the all-male household, and her animated, gangster-ish ex-boyfriend (Huang Huai-te, 黃懷德), who raps at a local night market, provides absurdist comedic relief. Chang could have expanded more on A-zhen’s background, as there are several scenes that are confusing and unclear. It would also give a bit more color (literally, as she wears bright clothes compared to the others) to the story.
While many Taiwanese films of this genre focus on family conflict and dysfunction, there’s little bitterness or complaints (although a lot of nagging) in Flotsam and Jetsam. The central motif in the film, as the Chinese title indicates, is a giant inflatable red horse, and it seems to represent the bit of hope that the characters manage to hold on to, no matter how hard things get.
It’s not the easiest film to watch as one constantly wonders if the plot is going anywhere, and many of the subtle details only sink in afterward. But it’s beautifully shot (even the garbage-filled scenes are somehow poetic) and edited, with a fitting emotional soundtrack that amplifies the mood.
Photo courtesy of Golden Horse Film Festival
The depressing numbers continue to pile up, like casualty lists after a lost battle. This week, after the government announced the 19th straight month of population decline, the Ministry of the Interior said that Taiwan is expected to lose 6.67 million workers in two waves of retirement over the next 15 years. According to the Ministry of Labor (MOL), Taiwan has a workforce of 11.6 million (as of July). The over-15 population was 20.244 million last year. EARLY RETIREMENT Early retirement is going to make these waves a tsunami. According to the Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), the
Last week the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) announced that the legislature would again amend the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) to separate fiscal allocations for the three outlying counties of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu from the 19 municipalities on Taiwan proper. The revisions to the act to redistribute the national tax revenues were passed in December last year. Prior to the new law, the central government received 75 percent of tax revenues, while the local governments took 25 percent. The revisions gave the central government 60 percent, and boosted the local government share to 40 percent,
Many will be surprised to discover that the electoral voting numbers in recent elections do not entirely line up with what the actual voting results show. Swing voters decide elections, but in recent elections, the results offer a different and surprisingly consistent message. And there is one overarching theme: a very democratic preference for balance. SOME CAVEATS Putting a number on the number of swing voters is surprisingly slippery. Because swing voters favor different parties depending on the type of election, it is hard to separate die-hard voters leaning towards one party or the other. Complicating matters is that some voters are
Sept 22 to Sept 28 Hsu Hsih (許石) never forgot the international student gathering he attended in Japan, where participants were asked to sing a folk song from their homeland. When it came to the Taiwanese students, they looked at each other, unable to recall a single tune. Taiwan doesn’t have folk songs, they said. Their classmates were incredulous: “How can that be? How can a place have no folk songs?” The experience deeply embarrassed Hsu, who was studying music. After returning to Taiwan in 1946, he set out to collect the island’s forgotten tunes, from Hoklo (Taiwanese) epics to operatic
RSS