This is the story mentioned in the film. The woman who jumped off the waterfall chose to end at the most brilliant moment of her youth, not disappointed. Just don't want to see this brilliant wither. And what if she didn't jump? What if she chooses to be like everyone else? That's the story of "Sad City".
The values of Sakura are Japanese values after all, so they decisively chose to give up and choose to withdraw from Taiwan. No matter how good time they have had in the few years here, no matter how much they miss this place and the feelings here, they still choose to give up. But what about Taiwan? As a small character in the film said, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was not for the Taiwanese to sign, and the so-called enslavement by Japan was not what they asked for; neither the sun flag nor the blue sky and white sun flag were requested by them. As a region, they don't even seem to have the ability to give up.
In fact, it has nothing to do with politics, and has nothing to do with the nation. After all, it will fall back to those who have the ability to give up. The Lin family in the film goes into ruin step by step, just like the cherry blossoms that do not want to wither with the wind at the glorious moment, clinging tightly to the branches, withering and dying little by little, although they are still struggling desperately. Their places are being replaced, they are being forced to change again. In the end, even the eldest brother rushed up with a knife and tried his best to keep his independence and freedom; but when he chose to live at the most brilliant moment, he also gave up independence and freedom-because withered He was powerless to stop it.
And this death—death in its most glorious hour—must be complete. There are two incomplete examples in the film. One is Lin Wenqing. His deafness is highly symbolic: he fell from a tree at the age of eight. It's like the falling of cherry blossoms, and it's like the woman who jumped from the waterfall mentioned earlier in the film. But after all he's not dead, he's just deaf. This kind of deafness may have delayed his withering at first (or just made it less obvious), so in the first few noisy discussion scenes with Lin Wenqing present, he was the only one who stayed out of the way. The forty minutes or so of the film is quite typical: people at a table next to them are discussing politics and how to survive, while he and Kuan Mei are listening to classical music, immersed in their own world, completely uncontaminated. But later in the film, Wen Qing's arrest and imprisonment, and his final disappearance, still stripped him of his previous privilege. The dirty environment in the prison is a mockery of the aesthetic atmosphere surrounding Wenqing before. The other is Wen Qing's friend Kuan Mei's brother Ton. He went into seclusion after being injured in the Taipei incident, hoping that his relatives would "take him as dead". But his final result is still arrested and his life and death are still unknown.
The photography throughout the film implies a capture and trace of the splendid moment. So from this perspective, Wen Qing can also be said to have died at the most brilliant moment. Especially compared to the last few shots of Lin Zhai, Wen Qing's death can be said to be a splendid burial. What kind of people are still living in the forest house? Gamblers, fools, lifeless people waiting to slowly wither and die.
Hou Hsiao-hsien's shots are particularly beautiful... I often hear people say that Beijing is chaotic and the environment is very bad, so it doesn't look good. But under the lens of Hou Hsiao-hsien, whether it is Japan in "Coffee Time" or Taiwan in the 1940s and 1950s in this film, almost every location can present a beautiful halo. This halo does not come from the clichéd blue sky and clear water, but from the characteristics of a city itself, a city seems to have a living atmosphere - it may be in the street of a vegetable market, it may be a stage (background The sky does not have to be very blue), Hou Hsiao-hsien can be very beautiful. It doesn't have to be beautiful with blue sky and clear water, just like it doesn't have to be only black and white to be considered silent.
The film's narrative skills are most prominently reflected in the second half of the film. When the big brother starts gambling like his dad, when the same fight happens in the same scene, it's like saying that nothing has changed; and this change is suddenly ended by the sound of gunshots - not that nothing has changed, but they don't want to Change (like there is a detail in the back, Kuanmei went to the market to buy rice dumplings); to return to the big point, Taiwan does not want to change, and does not want to be forced to change.
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