Capsule by Jonathan Rosenbaum From the Chicago
Reader
A remarkable and beautiful 160-minute family saga (1989) by the
great Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien (A Time to Live and a Time to
Die, The Puppet Master) that begins at the end of Japan's 51-year
colonial rule in Taiwan and ends in 1949, when mainland China becomes communist
and Chiang Kai-shek's government retreats to Taipei. Perceiving these historical
upheavals through the varied lives of a single family, Hou again proves himself
a master of long takes and complex framing, with a great talent for passionate
(though elliptical and distanced) storytelling. Given the diverse languages and
dialects spoken here (including the language of a deaf-mute, rendered in
intertitles), this is largely a meditation on communication itself. It is also
one of the supreme masterworks of the contemporary cinema.