Taiwanese
filmmaker Hou ventures to Japan for this homage to the great
Yasujiro Ozu on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It's
pure Ozu-style: crisply focussed, long, minimalist takes
of people reluctant to express their true feelings. It's
revealing and enlightening, but unlike Ozu's work, this
is also somewhat dull and uninvolving.
Yoko
(Hitito) has been teaching Japanese in Taiwan, and now returns
home with the news that she's pregnant by one of her students.
Her father and stepmother (Kobayashi and Yo) take some time
to react to this rather shocking news. And to ease herself
back into local life, Yoko visits all her favourite cafes
and spends time with her friend Hajime (Asano), who helps
her research a Chinese composer from the 1930s who once
lived in Japan.
The
camera lingers quietly in each the scene, with extended
static shots of people going about their daily business.
Even the more confrontational scenes are shot from odd angles,
usually behind the characters so we can't see their faces.
All of this echoes Ozu's style, except that he was astonishingly
gifted at taking us into the characters' inner life even
while remaining aloof. Hou never quite manages this, and
only really allows the remarkable Asano to show some emotional
resonance; Hajime is clearly besotted with Yoko, but doesn't
dare say so, especially once he finds out that she's with
child.
All
of the characters have unexpressed thoughts and opinions--Yoko's
parents must feel strongly about her news, but even when
they finally confront her, their shock centres on how the
baby's father is a member of an umbrella-manufacturing family
rather than that she has no intention of marrying him. This
too is Ozu-like, and this is the strongest aspect of the
film--micro-details of Japanese culture that are actually
universally relevant. Li Ping-Bing's camera work and the
film's sound mixing are sharp and vivid, and there's a nice
sense of how people have to work very hard to be so matter-of-fact
about extraordinary things that happen in their lives. But
the film is so elusive and unknowable that it will only
appeal to fans of cinematic poetry.
