Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's A City of Sadness took the Grand Prize at last year's Venice Film Festival. A sprawling, ambitious family epic, it delineates the varying fortunes of a family of four sons during Taiwan's turbulent years, 1945-1949. In this period after the Japanese surrender, Taiwan, having been returned to China, was torn apart by internal strife. Irreconcilable differences between the Taiwanese and a corrupt nationalist government led to the "February 28 Incident" of 1947, in which anti-government riots broke out. Nationalist troops were called in to quell the rebellion and the punishment of activists was severe. With the Communist takeover of China in 1949, the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan; the dissension continues.
A City of Sadness captures this disordered era in a rigorous series of beautifully photographed, meditatively paced scenes. Now in his tenth year of filmmaking, Hou Hsiao-hsien was interviewed by The Film Journal last fall in conjunction with the film's showing at the New York Film Festival.
FJ: Were did you get the idea for the script?
HH: The idea first came about two years ago when I went to a friend's house and heard a song from that period. The song was typical of that period, very restrained and sad. The screenwriters and I were thinking of making a film that was more dramatic, nothing to do with politics, but actually about the next generation, the continuation of the story of A City of Sadness. About that time, Taiwan lifted the martial law and so with that we changed the focus to make the film about the first generation.
FJ: Congratulations on winning the Best Film prize at the Venice Film Festival. What are your feelings?
HH: Good. I was very calm and it's also good because it gives ammunition to my friends who've been supporting me over the years. It's living proof that a film of quality can be made under the working conditions in Taiwan and gain international recognition.
FJ: What was the budget?
HH: Including publicity and post-production, $200,000, which is a rather big budget for Taiwan, about four times the normal budget. It was privately financed, by a businessman who owns a video company and also buys foreign films to release in Taiwan. This man is well-travelled, so he has the aim of an international market. The film will have a very wide release in Taiwan, in theatres that usually only show Western and Chinese films. The film took about four months and 16 days to shoot.
FJ: How have your other film been received in Taiwan?
HH: It's been very varied. A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1985) and Dust in the Wind (1987) did very well at the box office. My earlier films like Daughter of the Nile (1987), The Boys from Fengkuei (1983), and A Summer at Grandpa's (1984) were not so successful. One of my earliest, The Sandwich Man (1983) was a big hit. It was an anthology film with two other directors.
FJ: How did you choose the actors, particularly the main protagonist, the deaf brother?
HH: The production company wanted to use a Hong Kong actor in one of the roles to ensure a successful market, and out of all their actors, there were two I admired. One was Chou Yun Fat, who's going to have a major retrospective in Chicago and also at Asia Society. The other was Tony Leung [a popular vocalist], who got the part. This is the fourth film I've made with Hsin Shu-fen, our heroine. I discovered her. She was walking down the street, still in school. I gave her my card and took down her number and told her I wanted to work with her. What I had in mind was not to cast her in any of my later films but just to work with her in A Time to Live and a Time to Die on a very small part. I discovered that she was a very good actress, very accomplished even though she had never acted before and that's how our relationship began.
FJ: Why did you make your protagonist deaf?
HH: We decided to do this film in synch sound, which is basically unheard of in Taiwan. For Tony Leung to speak Mandarin and also Taiwanese was not possible, so to get rid of that problem we decided to turn him into a deaf mute and that seemed to work.
FJ: Are you more interested in political concerns or the effect they have on the individual?
HH: I'm more interested in people and the family, not so much in the politics of society. I'm very interested in the decay of family and the impact of that on the individual. In the film, the third son comes back from China, is accused of being a Japanese spy and goes to jail. He gets beaten up there and has a complete mental breakdown when he comes out.
FJ: Did this happen a lot at the time?
HH: It happened to many. Many people were conscripted to serve in the army during the Japanese occupation.
FJ: What has been the effect upon the Taiwanese of so many different occupations, Japanese, Chinese, etc. Is there a strong national push for a Taiwanese identity?
HH: This is more prevalent among the intellectuals. It's not something that's one the mind of the average person, who's very preoccupied with making money.
FJ: What is film censorship like in Taiwan?
HH: In Taiwan right now there is censorship. You have to send your film to a censor and they classify it, kind of like your American system. I think it's pretty unfair --- one should only have a rating system and not censorship. In the constitution there is the right of the artist to create, so there is talk of abolishing censorship now entirely. Hopefully, in a year of so this will happen.
Films in mainland China since the June 4 uprising will probably not make much impact there unless the situation changes a bit. The Hong Kong industry basically consists of commercial films and it's losing its audience because of the repetitiousness, the same actors and actresses doing the same kind of film again and again. it's on the verge of a real danger, almost collapse. But it's also an interesting time in that they may come up with a new form and make a comeback. Taiwanese film is in a pretty low state now. Only about 30 films have been made in the previous years and I myself have been making my own films which have very little to do with mainstream commercial films. It's almost like I'm riding on a train and the train is heading on and I cannot jump off of it, so I'm going to keep on with my way of filmmaking.
FJ: What are your impressions of the United States?
HH: This is my third visit here. My impression of America is that people here are not very animated. Everything is predetermined --- there's a distance between people, they're not as close or animated as people I know in Taiwan. People in Japan are so preoccupied with work they never smile, and I feel the same way about the Americans.