Flowers of Shanghai
After watching Flowers of Shanghai this week, I've been thinking a lot about Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The first film of his that I saw was Cafe Lumiere, which is sort of a tribute to Ozu, and I've slowly grown more and more interested and become more and more impressed. Initially I liked the way that he dealt with time and pace, but it took a long time for me to get comfortable with it. They aren't movies that you rave about, they are movies that you want to spend time with. I'm not sure it is about 'getting' them, as much as just getting in touch with what you are actually seeing and hearing, maybe finding your spot in the scene or waiting for something in you to be triggered.
Millenium Mambo
To me what is special about his films is the way that it feels like you are experiencing it yourself, but with some indefinable extra sense. Sometimes you aren't even sure that a scene or a film showed you anything significant at all, but then it pops up in your mind days or weeks later and won't go away. I wish I could find a clip that would do some justice to what I'm trying to talk about, but maybe my lack of success in finding one is all too appropriate for this post. So here are some stills instead.
Cafe Lumiere
Goodbye South, Goodbye
"Sometimes you aren't even sure that a scene or a film showed you anything significant at all, but then it pops up in your mind days or weeks later and won't go away."
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly how I felt with the one film of his I saw years ago. I didn't enjoy the movie, and I can't even remember its name, but there was this shot! In it the camera follows this guy as he leaves a room full of gangster-types (I think), and goes outside. He's just there, outside in the dawn (or dusk), and you're watching it, and that's all.
But it's stuck in my brain.
sSs