Offscreen Notes
Hou Hsiao-hsien Retrospective
At the end of 1999, the Village Voice conducted its first poll of North American film critics, whom they asked to pick their “bests” of 1999, and also of the decade. Of the 50 plus respondents, 9 chose Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-hsien as the “Best Director of the Decade.” (Abbas Kiarostami and Krzysztof Kieslowski finished second with 6 votes each.) Remarkably, at that time, none of his films had ever been released in the U.S. or Canada, and, even more remarkably, Hou finished as 2nd Best Director of 1999 for Flowers of Shanghai/ Hai shang hua (1998), the film which placed as the 3rd best film of the decade, even though it had never received a North American theatrical release! In a similar manner, the prestigious French film journal, Cahiers du Cinéma voted Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Goodbye South, Goodbye??/ ??Nanguo zaijan, nanguo (1996) the best film of the 1990s, having previously named Flowers of Shanghai the best film of 1998. At least Hou’s films were being released in France, and, it wasn’t until 2003, that his next feature, Millenium Mambo??/ ??Quanxi manbo (2001) received a limited release in the U.S., after it was voted the #2 “Best Unreleased” film in the 3rd Voice poll at the end of 2001. The pattern continued. Hou’s next film, a tribute to Ozu on his centennial, Café Lumière (Japan, 2003) was voted the “Best Undistributed Film” in the 2004 Voice poll, receiving 26 mentions, and was released the following year. Then, Three Times??/ ??Zui hao de shi guang (2005) a great overview of three stages in his career was voted “Best Undistributed Film” of 2005 (by 34 respondents no less) and was then released in 2006. (Both films were released on time in France and were placed in the Cahiers top ten in 2004 and 2005, respectively).
Unbelievably, Three Times is the very first of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films to be theatrically released in Quebec, and so, it is with enormous pleasure that we are able to announce that the Cinémathèque Québécoise is mounting a complete retrospective of Hou’s work as a feature-film maker in December. His first two films, Cute Girl??/ ??Jiushi liuliu de ta (1980), and Cheerful Wind??/ ??Feng er ti cai (1981), both filmed in cinemascope and made within the “healthy realism” dictates of the repressive Guomindang government at the time, have never been screened publicly in Quebec, we are sure. Almost as rare is the groundbreaking portmanteau feature, The Sandwich Man (1983) co-directed by Hou, Ren Wang and Zeng Zhuang Xiang, which ushered in the Taiwanese New Wave, the strange Daughter of the Nile??/ ??Niluohe nuer (1987), and the first film in his Taiwan history trilogy, City of Sadness??/ ??Beiqing chengshi (1989). This is essential viewing, as is the 2nd film in the series, The Puppetmaster/Hsimeng jensheng (1993), which, with its puppet shows and on-screen appearances of the octogenarian narrator, brilliantly re-invents narrative film structure. Although many of Hou’s films are available on DVD, including his autobiographical, realist work of the 1980s, from The Boys of Fengkuei??/ ??Fengkuei-lai-te-jen (1983) to Dust in the Wind??/ ??Lianlian fengchen (1986), the “history trilogy” and most films that have followed need to be seen on the big screen to properly appreciate the detail of their intricate compositions. This is certainly the case for Flowers of Shanghai wherein the director tried to recreate the ironic beauty of unbalanced male/female relations of 100 years ago.
Filmography of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films as a director with screening times in the Salle Claude-Jutra at the:
Cinémathèque Québécoise
1983: The Boys of Fengkuei (Fengkuei-lai-te jen) [Fr. s.t.’s , Dec 9; 17:00, 14; 16:00]
1984: A Summer at Grandpa’s (Dongdong de jiaqi) [Dec 9; 21:00]
1985: A Time to Live and A Time To Die (Tong nien wang shi) [Fr. s.t.’s, 10; 19:00]
1986: Dust in the Wind (Lianlian fengchen) [Fr. s.t.’s, Dec 10; 17:00, Dec 21; 16:00]
1987: Daughter of the Nile (Niluohe nuer) [Dec 13; 18:30]
1989: City of Sadness (Beiqing chengshi) [Dec 14; 20:30]
1993: The Puppetmaster (Hsimeng jensheng) [Dec 15; 20:30]
1995: Good Men, Good Women (Haonan haonu) [French s.t.’s, Dec 13; 20:30]
1996: Goodbye South, Goodbye (Nanguo zaijan, nanguo) [Fr. s.t.’s, Dec 16; 17:00]
1998: Flowers of Shanghai (Hai shang hua) [Dec 16; 21:00]
2001: Millennium Mambo (ianxi manbo) [Fr. s.t.’s, Dec 6; 18:30, Dec 7; 16:00]
2003: Café Lumière (Japan, Kohi jiku) [Fr. s.t.’s, Dec 16; 19:15]
2005: Three Times (Zui hao de shi guang) [Dec 17; 17:00]
There will also be a screening of Olivier Assaya’s documentary, HHH, portrait de Hou Hsiao-hsien (1996), on December 17 @ 19:30
Peter Rist
