Spatial Narrative Of Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Film

With the geopolitics relationship between Mainland and Taiwan, in films Hou narrated the past and present, and thought of the future of Taiwan in the aspects of common people. Good Men Good Women and The Best Time connected the past and present of Taiwan across space-time continuum, represented the present through history and rethought the history under the effect of present; Flowers of Shanghai narrated the story of three women in the late Qing Dynasty who lived in Long Three Apartment; Goodbye South, Goodbye and Millennium Mambo was the self-representation of regional environment; Coffee Time and Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge, with the outsider’s take, narrated the people and cities of Japan and France naturally.Hou Hsiao Hsien said, he liked the present trace of time and space in which people would act, so he took efforts to chase the trace and attitude of people. As he said, that thing, for him, mattered most. Taiwan was outside. The geographical location, spatial distance, and the corresponding class identification, social politics and the historic culture, all these things made Hou’s generation grow up in a complex environment. They were confused and panic, tangling in the image of country and family, chasing the self-identification, and holding on a piece of pure mind space with the constructed impression of family and city in films.This article uses the movie space, metropolis space and mental space as starting points to research the construction of image space and meaning in Hou’s seven films mentioned above. With the applying of theories about cultural geography, urban sociology and image space, this article investigates texts and literatures, analyzes the society, history and culture, and makes a way to deeply research Hou’s film and its social background and cultural meaning.