PHOTOGRAPHY:
Photograph 3
- The last picture of Wen-ching, Hinomi, and their son --- a
signifying process of double meaning --- of preservation and destruction.
(C: 33:58-35:50)
- Perhaps the most devastating moment in the film is when Wen- ching
takes a photograph of his family upon realizing that his own death near.
Their constrained pose and worried looks, emphasized by a frozen cinematic
image doubling the diegetic still photo, constitute the most revealing
performative representation undermining any pedagogical interpretation
of history. From the first shot of the scene (the ritual preparation for
photo taking --- combing his hair, setting up the camera, adjusting the
lens and shutter) to the last freeze-frame shot of the still family photo,
the scene reveals an appalling message about how this single family is
damaged by political brutality. This image constitutes the most powerful
accusation against the pedagogical history written by the Nationalist regime
for the way it teases out the double meaning of the co-existence of presence
and absence in the photographic image.
- The subsequent voice-over by Hinomi foregrounds this double- coding.
With a freeze-frame coinciding with the click of the shutter, the filmic
frame collides with the photographic frame. The frozen image disperses
into the significations of two apparatuses. Finally, the film pauses on
the "doubled" image for several seconds, waiting for Hinomi's
sound to provide a sequential transition. Hinomi's voice-over informs us
of the final exigency following that photo session --- the arrest of her
husband. Linking the photographic and filmic image of the family, Wen-
ching's last effort in keeping his nuclear family intact through the means
of a still photograph is thus allegorized as a lament for a nation eroded
by colonial forces. Given this highly charged photographic signification
of destruction and preservation, the role of the deaf-mute photographer
can no longer be understood as a technical compromise but rather a highly
selective choice that invests more compelling, emotive levels of meaning
in filmic images.
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