Festival ’90 : CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF HIS TIME : Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s standing as a major force in film has only begun to be recognized

Last summer, while U.S. movie audiences in were reveling in the adventures of Batman and Indiana Jones, cinemas in Taiwan and Hong Kong were doing excellent business with a long, complicated, serious film about an episode in Taiwan history.

In the land of the martial arts leap-and-kick film, the commercial success of “A City of Sadness” came as a surprise. But Hou Hsiao-hsien, the Taiwan director of the film, has made a career of capturing the spirit of his times on film. In “A City of Sadness,” he exceeded himself. The jury at the Venice International Film Festival concurred, presenting Hou with the Golden Lion Award in recognition of the film’s power. It was acknowledgement too of Hou’s standing as one of the most accomplished film artists of his generation anywhere in the world.

As a film on an epic scale about the birth of modern Taiwan, “A City of Sadness” is something of a departure for him. In Taiwan cinema’s “New Wave” of the 1980s, Hou has represented what might be called the pastoral wing in the island’s filmmaking.

Most of his previous films have been more personal, even autobiographical accounts of growing up in Taiwan. This was the great contribution of the new Taiwanese cinema in the 1980s, a recognition of the reality of Taiwan life. Previously the film industry had been dominated by exiled artists and producers from the Chinese mainland, intent on recreating the lost world of Shanghai in weepy and increasingly old-fashioned melodramas.

Hou grew up in a family that had moved from Mei county in the southern mainland province of Guangdong in 1949 when Hou was a year old. His father passed away when he was 12 and his mother died of throat cancer in 1965, the same year that Hou graduated from high school.

Upon his discharge from military service in 1969, Hou entered the National Taiwan Arts Academy, where he studied film. After graduating in 1972, he spent time selling electronic calculators before he began work in film the following year, serving as continuity, assistant director and script writer for a number of older directors. Hou’s directorial debut came in 1980 with a fresh comedy, “Cute Girls.”

Hou’s third film marked the emergence of a major talent in the “pastoral” school of Taiwan’s “New Wave.” “The Green, Green Grass of Home” (1982) was a gentle tale set in the countryside celebrated by Taiwanese writers in the previous decade when a genre of “hometown” literature had emerged. Hou was part of the first efforts to put this authentically Taiwanese experience on film.

His episode, “The Son’s Big Doll,” in the three-part omnibus film “The Sandwich Man” (1983) again suggested his ability to capture the everyday, inarticulate hopes and fears of real people living in Taiwan. This was a breath of fresh air in the musty sound stages of the Taiwan film industry.

“The Boys From Fenquei” (1983) marked Hou’s modest emergence on the world stage. The film follows the journey of three young men from a rather pointless existence in a small town to a big city and factory work. The film seems to suggest that in the course of the journey, something worthwhile may be lost. This critique of the price of becoming modern has remained central in all of his films.

Hou made his first visit to an international film festival in late 1984 when he accompanied the film to the Hawaii International Film Festival. Traveling with him was Chu Tien-Wen, the young writer who brought her talents to a number of Hou’s projects. While Hou was in Honolulu, “Boys” won the best film award at the Festival of Three Continents at Nantes in France.

Hou’s first major international success was “A Time to Live and a Time to Die,” which he completed in 1985. Drawing upon his own family’s experience, Hou charted the changes in a mainland family in Taiwan of the 1950s and 1960s through the eyes of the oldest son. As several family members die of sickness and the young man makes the passage from juvenile delinquent to maturity, the potential for melodrama and excess is great. Hou’s extraordinary tact in negotiating this mine field of emotions makes the film a masterpiece in world cinemas.

The special power of the film derives in large part from Hou’s restrained yet highly expressive directorial style. His camera tends to fix the events of the story in a long, unblinking gaze. Hou’s actors have the time and space to convey the full depth of the characters’ emotions. Audiences become absorbed in direct observation.

“Dust in the Wind” (1986) applied this powerful yet subtle style to the story of a group of young people who move from a rural mining town to Taipei. The young protagonist goes off to military training, armed with 1,096 postcards to send to his girlfriend, one card for each day of his duty. But one day, the cards stop coming. People change: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s camera makes these changes palpable.

The other major directorial talent in Taiwan cinema’s “New Wave” has been Edward Yang, a close friend of Hou. Yang represents the urban emphasis in Taiwan films. His stylish contemplations of ennui in modern Taipei have been compared to the films by Antonioni. Hou and Yang have helped each other on their films.

In 1986 Hou himself turned to a strictly urban setting of neon gloss and discos. “Daughter of the Nile” centers on a schoolgirl who finds escape from the pressures of urban life and having a brother on the fringes of the underworld in her favorite comic serial that gives the film its title. The urban milieu of “Daughter of the Nile” was something of a departure, but still central to his work was the chronicling of change in contemporary Taiwan society.

In “A City of Sadness,” Hou took a major step away from his own experience. While all his previous films were to some extent autobiographical, “City” ventures into history by bringing his highly developed, humanistic style to what amounts to an epic of the birth of a nation. The reference to major historical events through the complex story of a family helped fill the theaters in Taipei and elsewhere last year. Most epics are huge and impersonal. Hou’s special quality is his ability to suggest these events without losing a strong human dimension.

“A City of Sadness” centers on the Lin family in Taiwan after the Aug. 15, 1945 surrender of the Japanese. Taiwan had been a Japanese colony for the previous 50 years until the Chinese Nationalist government began taking over the island.

The oldest of four Lin brothers turns his Japanese-style bar into “Little Shanghai” to cash in on the postwar boom. Lin Wen-heung is also involved in a shipping company. Through this he and the third brother become embroiled in smugglers’ battles for territorial rights. The second Lin brother disappeared during the war in the Philippines and never appears in the film. The youngest Lin brother, a deaf-mute, runs a photo studio. Lin Wen-ching and his circle of young friends are convinced that socialism will save Taiwan from corruption and social ills.

On Feb. 28, 1947 anti-government riots erupted in Taiwan. The mainland army was brought in to bloodily suppress the protests. None of this appears in the film, which remains strictly centered on the Lin household. Lin Wen-ching is arrested, along with many of his friends.

Upon his release, Wen-ching wants to flee to the mountains to join the guerrillas. But his best friend asks Wen-ching to stay behind and take care of his sister, Hinomi. Like several characters, Hinomi and her brother are Chinese but have grown up under Japanese tutelage and use Japanese names.

The oldest Lin brother dies in a fight with rival smugglers. The third brother, having returned from Shanghai and recovered from a mental breakdown, is arrested by police. He returns to the sprawling Lin family home a physical wreck. The hopes and future of the family rest on the shoulders of the youngest brother. Wen-ching marries Hinomi and they have a son. But the aftermath of the Feb. 27 incident awaits them.

Death, violence, physical deformity and a household of wives and widows in lesser directorial hands might produce melodrama and inconsequence. The scale of this film is enormous: new characters enter and exit in rapid succession. They speak at least six different languages: Taiwanese, Cantonese, Japanese, Shanghainese, Fujianese and Mandarin.

A masterful filmmaker, Hou, working with a script by his longtime collaborator Chu Tien-wen and Wu Nien-jen, holds the complexity and size of the story together. Much of the film centers on the deaf-mute brother, Wen-ching. Through his inability to speak, Hou creates an eloquent commentary on political and social helplessness. Hong Kong actor and singer Tony Leung gives a performance whose restraint matches that of his director.

For Taiwan audiences last summer, “A City of Sadness” had special significance. The Taipei government ended four decades of martial law and stirrings of political liberalization began in the late 1980s. The Feb. 27 incident had never been referred to before on Taiwan’s screens, despite its importance.

In previous films, Hou Hsiao-hsien had shown a remarkable ability to reflect and illuminate changes in Taiwan society. “A City of Sadness” continues the trend in a work of art that richly deserves international acclaim.