Good Men, Good Women

The narrative structure worked as a disadvantage for me; with moments of worth popping up in all sections I'm not sure what's to blame. Still, as with everything I see of Hou, you could not drag me away from this.

The most interesting Hou film I've seen yet. He blurs the lines between the "film" and the "film within the film" until eventually they become reversed. I'm not explaining it well, but it's a really intriguing narrative. Surprisingly, I didn't have much difficulty following it, despite not knowing anything about the historical incidents being portrayed.

Estreava há 25 anos no Festival de Cannes. Uma coisa é certa, a trilogia histórica do Hou Hsiao-hsien me ensinou várias curiosidades sobre a história do Taiwan e aqui o paralelo entre a cultura passada e o presente (que para muitos já é cultura passada também) dá a medida possível da juventude em suas respectivas épocas, especialmente tratando da condição das mulheres. Plus: Participação especial de Pai e Filha do Ozu, para dar aquele gosto geracional a mais. DVDRip no MakingOff.

The cryptic structure of the film is a magnificent device to promote inter-generational reflection and illustrate the connection between personal and national histories. Hou's film ultimately shows itself to be a self-reflexive exercise in identity formation. Hou wants to know the identity of the Taiwanese people, both on a personal and on a national level (as if those could even be separated). The relationships between threads in this film should yield productive results on repeat viewings.