international magazine - International and Area Studies

LearnBy Nick DalkeTime Keeps On Slippin’:Memory, Narrative and Aesthetics inChungking Express and A Cityof SadnessThe post-socialistera of late twentiethcentury China gaverise to a new form ofcinema. The submissionof the cinema tothe state propagandamachine in the mainlandevaporated, and sotoo did the Taiwanesereactions to such propaganda,such as thegenre known as “healthyrealism.” Two films inparticular exemplify thenew subservience directors began to take to theformal traits celluloid itself. In A City of Sadness(Taiwan, 1989), Hou Hsiao-hsien uses his newfoundfreedom of expression as well as the formal qualitiesof editing and mise-en-scene to tear away atthe myth surrounding the KMT massacre of February28, 1947 (a.k.a, the “228 incident”) and constructa memory of that massacre from the point ofview of the populace. In contrast, Wong Kar-wai’sChungking Express (Hong Kong, 1994) uses thesesame elements to demonstrate the protean natureof Hong Kong’s identity and its anxiety towards theexpiration date of its return to China in 1997.A City of Sadness embeds the effectsof the 228 incident straight into the stylistic qualitiesof the film through the use of editing and itsinfamous elliptical narrative. Elliptical narratives arehard to demonstrate with a shot analysis becauseby definition if you ellipse something it’s not there,but the complement to this is Hou Hsia-hsien’s useof the long take. One shot in particular is emblematicof his cinematic reflection on violence. This isthe long take where the characters Wen-ching andHinomi sit in front of the record player listening toLorelei in a medium shot that lasts over a minute.They sit directly across the room from where theirfriends, Taiwanese intellectuals, are discussing theabusive actions of KMT troops on the island and thelikely continued ravaging of Taiwan at their hands.Yet the two lovers writeeach other notes as ifthey are both deaf tothe obvious threat thatsurrounds them andhear only the sweetsounds that serenadethem.Huo uses thelong take here tocompare the imagesof violence, those ACity of Sadness ellipsesthrough, to the continuityof the peace ofPhoto by Jake Novick/Hong Kong,China everyday life that suchviolence disrupts. Thistranquil shot providesa contrast to the threat being discussed by giving ustwo characters who are about to be in love, probablyfalling in love as we watch them now, listening tothe soft melodic tones of that peaceful Rhineland.Additionally, the length of this shot lulls the viewerinto a sense of comfort in this image of tranquilityand creates hope that this sort of domestic serenitywill continue. Huo Hsiao-hsien’s point in creatingthis contrast, however, is that it will not. Every manin the room will be dead by the end of the film.But we will not see their deaths.The thematic decision to ellipse over the majorityof violence in A City of Sadness is a result of thehistorical context in which this film and indeed allof the Taiwanese New Cinema was produced. AsYueh Yu Yeh and Darrell Davis point out in theirchapter “Navigating the House of Yang,” for decadesthe Taiwanese KMT government had forcibly suppressedthe memory of the massacre and it was ACity of Sadness that finally “threw the door open toreflections on the dark areas of Taiwan history thathad been officially out-of-bounds during martiallaw,” (Yeh and Davis, 93). As a result of this suppression,the first open attempt to remember theevent forty-two years later first had to reconstructit through the many holes and fragmented spots14Newsletter of International and Area Studies