Even in his earliest films, Hou knew exactly where to put the camera. All of his films move from perfect shot to perfect shot -- in his later films, there are sometimes two or three perfect shots in a single take, thanks to his slowly moving camera. Instead of manipulating time and emotion through editing, Hou constructs his cinematic worlds through long takes. The camera, like the director, is patient and observant, always keeping a respectful distance, but with an unblinking inability to look away -- while Hou's characters tend toward the sad and lonely; those who can't connect with their environment, or each other.
This failure to connect can be considered a reflection of Taiwan itself, a country with a complex self-image, thanks to its past: Japan surrendered Taiwan to China in 1945, after 50 years of colonization. Two years later, the Taiwanese rebelled against inflation and the corrupt Nationalist leaders; eventually Communism triumphed on the mainland, but in 1949 came the establishment of the Nationalist Government in Taiwan. From language changes to ideological ones, this upheaval has affected generations of Taiwanese, including Hou, whose father (born on mainland China) moved the family to Taiwan in 1948, never to return to his homeland.
Hou's latest film, Flowers of Shanghai, is the first film set on mainland China. Flowers takes place in 19th-century brothels; the "flowers" of the title are flower girls, essentially prostitutes -- though that's too crude a word for these women, who are more like paid companions, afforded much more dignity and respect than the average streetwalker. In one sense, the movie is about money and possessions, about paying off debts or buying one's freedom, but in a greater sense, it's about gossip.
From the very beginning, we learn about the characters primarily through how other people talk about them behind their backs. The main characters in the first scene (each scene of the film is composed of a single shot, fading in at the beginning, fading to black at the end) are Master Wang and his two feuding flower girls, Jasmine and Crimson. But Crimson isn't physically present. This is a device used throughout the film: Characters are talked about, and we draw our initial impressions of a character from this gossip. But as the characters are allowed to reveal themselves to us, we realize how simplistic these initial "overheard" descriptions were. Again and again, Hou records his characters' transitions from "gossip subjects" into people.
The Grand Illusion will kick off a retrospective of the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien with a two-week run of Flowers of Shanghai. However, one film does not a retrospective make, so for their weekend matinees (which will run through March 7), the Grand Illusion will be showing six more of Hou's films, starting with A Time to Live, a Time to Die (1985), his first internationally acclaimed film. It's based directly on his own life, from his childhood dislike of school, to his teenage life in gangs, to his being drafted in the army. His "sadness trilogy" has been called his masterpiece, and includes the films A City of Sadness (1989), The Puppetmaster (1993), and Good Men, Good Women (1995). Dust in the Wind (1987) is about sad lovers who move from the country to the city in order to work because neither one can pay for school, and the toll the move takes on their relationship, while Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996) is a contemporary tale of urban gangsters and restless "hanging out." A full-series pass will be available, and is recommended because these rare films have never had a theatrical release here or anywhere in the United States, and if there's any justice in the world, this series will sell out.
