I first heard about A Borrowed Life in early 2000, when director Martin Scorsese picked it as one of the best films of the 1990's on the TV review show Siskel and Ebert. Since Scorsese liked it so much, I immediately put A Borrowed Life onto my "to see" list. It took twenty-two years, but I did finally watch the film last year.
A Borrowed Life is a rural family melodrama set in Taiwan from the early 1960s to the early 1990's. It follows a young man in a dying mining village. The film is mostly focused on the young man's mixed feelings for his father. A headstrong man full of vitality, the protagonist's father is a man to be reckoned with. He is also a very difficult person to live with, an adulterer, an abuser, and often self-centered. In spite of all of these negatives, the young man loves his father and the film traces their relationship through about three decades.
A Borrowed Life is way overlong at 160 minutes, and I don't think it is as as good as A Brighter Summer Day, another long film about growing up in the 1960's Taiwan. Those complaints aside, A Borrowed Life did win me over by the end. The sad, final half-hour is true to life, regardless of where and when one grew up.
