| Today the Taiwanese film director, Hou Hsiao-hsien, is one of the leading figures in world cinema, called by some the greatest living director. Yet his peculiar long-take style defies easy description or categorization. In trying to explain Hou, many resort to either Chinese culture or the culture of international cinema. Outside of Taiwan, most treat his hailing from the island as being of secondary importance, if not a nuisance altogether.; My hypothesis is that Taiwan is central, not peripheral, to understanding Hou Hsiao-hsien. Hou began making his mark as a director when the notion of a greater Chinese culture was losing ground in Taiwan during the 1980s, and a burgeoning Taiwanese identity appeared. His films represent the social and cultural ferment on the island which no longer saw itself as strictly Chinese, but as a unique and historically determined entity. Yet Hou did not rely on cultural changes alone. The film industry in the early eighties took a nose-dive due to the rise of the Hong Kong film industry, forcing local producers to consider the festival realm instead. The government tolerated, even supported, this trend since it desperately needed cultural diplomacy to supplant otherwise closed diplomatic channels.; All of these factors are evident in the Hou's films, most of all City of Sadness (1989) and The Puppetmaster (1993). Both works represent the historical experience of Taiwan in very unique cinematic terms, revealing a Taiwan distinct from the mainland. Both works display a dense stylistic design that no definition of a Chinese film style can account for, most of all Hou's peculiar handling of narrative, lighting and the long take. They also display a deeply Taoist as opposed to a tidy Confucian world-view. Far from removing culture from the picture, these films reveal a modern and dynamic Taiwanese culture, not at the periphery of Chinese tradition, but at the forefront of a modern, flexible Asian response to globalization. |
