Good Men, Good Women

Director Hsiao-hsien Hou seem to be fascinated with the disconnected newer generations in contemporary Taiwan, including it in other films like "Goodbye South, Goodbye". In this film, he takes on the period after the Nationalist retrieved to Taiwan and parallels it with the modern day, putting one story in another as a story which the film is to be based on within a film. In both stories, it is about the turbulent times in which the people as a whole act self destructively, either doing what they think is right as in the Nationalist government or due to their disassociation with the rest of society. The anonymous faxes in the modern period seem to be an indication that incidences either swept behind or intentionally forgotten will come back to haunt you until the issue is confronted. A message that the brutality that happened after the Nationalist's arrival in Taiwan should not be forgotten or ignored, but should eventually be dealt with.

This is a movie that bravely confronts issues in a country that is too preoccupied with trying to juggle for positions in the global market. A reminder to everyone that a country's history does not consist of only the valiant highlights, but also of shameful past that should not be discarded.

Liang Ching, an actress in contemporary Taiwan with a weakness for gangsters, prepares to star in a biopic of Chiang Bi-Ya, a real- life survivor of the White Terror- the suppression and execution of thousands of communists and suspected communists by the island's Nationalist government after the revolutionary victory on the mainland.

It takes the viewer some time to realize that during the scenes depicting Bi-Ya's life, we are not, in fact, watching a film- within-a- film, but rather Ching's fantasies of Bi-Ya as she prepares for the role. Ching imagines Bi-Ya's life and struggle, a young idealist who joins the initially Nationalist-led resistance to the Japanese only to later be attacked by those same nationalists, in ways that both reflect and contrast with her own experiences. Consciously or not, Ching constructs a narrative of the founding of modern Taiwan as a US garrison state that forgrounds and to a degree excuses her own moral and emotional compromise to the modern Taiwanese mafia, who buy and sell human lives and loyalties.

It is of course a truism that one cannot understand the present without understanding the past. But, Hou Hsiao-hsien's film suggests, neither can we look to the past without trying to understand it through the lens of the present and the personal. We never see any of the scenes from the "objective biopic" that Ching will star in, and the film suggests that such a work cannot be put on screen. It cannot exist. History and memory are inextricably intertwined. The personal and the universal cannot ultimately be distinguished.

Good Men, Good Women displays the painterly beauty characteristic of Hou's films. The point of its narrative is much less allusive than in many of his movies, making it easier to digest, yet also less seductively enigmatic than Hou's very best work. Still, a very worthwhile piece of filmmaking.

The conclusion of Hou's Taiwanese history trilogy, 'Good Men, Good Women' is not purely a continuation of the previous films' themes. It is an amalgamation of the past, present, and the connections between both. The two time periods in this film (or is it three?) are gradually intertwined to tell one cohesive story.

In modern day Taipei, an actress Liang Ching (Annie Shizuka Inoh) is rehearsing for the role of Chiang Bi-Yu, a woman who traveled to China to find the Japanese in the 1940's. Liang is struggling and distraught because of the death of her gangster boyfriend Ah Wei (Jack Kao) a few years prior and because an anonymous man is faxing her pages of her stolen diary which restitute her previous memories of her time with Ah, and after his death. Liang's imaginary episodes of what the film will be like, which are for the most part shot in black and white, her immediate present, and her immediate past are all mixed together with the deftest emotional accuracy.

The shots are so artistically accomplished that they are able to properly the connection of all history and past, with current personal events, and the eternal, constant binds of time. Liang's story nearly directly mirrors Chiang Bi Yu's. Both contemplate in alienation; when Chiang and her compatriots whom she enters China do not speak the language of those who they are trying to help because of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan which, for them, just recently ended. They are labeled as Japanese spies, and nearly killed, and upon the return to Taiwan they are labeled as communists. Because of the oppressive government and recent horrific acts committed by it they want to make a change to make life better. No matter how questionable and near-sighted their political views, they wanted to make some sort of change. Liang and her 'compatriots' are drowning in shallowness. Hou praises the courage of that older generation, but none of that is found in Liang's age. Yet, he appears to say, that these are the same people who go through similar experiences, and are only molded by the world around them, and therefore by history. Over time, the dream for a better future gives way to the dream for more profit because of the implications of history and the political.

In the previous films of the 'trilogy', Hou searched for the relationship between life and a certain form of art. Here, it is of cinema, and therefore Hou questions his own role. Ozu's 'Late Spring' plays on a television near the beginning, and in a self-referential manner, helps represents how cinema is able to understand a people, and their conflicts whether interior or exterior. In the previous films of the 'trilogy', Hou searched for the relationship between life and a certain form of art. Here, it is of cinema, and therefore Hou questions his own role. Ozu's 'Late Spring' plays on a television near the beginning, and in a self-referential manner, helps represents how cinema is able to understand a people, and their conflicts whether interior or exterior.

The regrets of the nation and the regrets of the person are all subtly laid out to dry. In order to move forward into a non-unsure and non-insecure future the regrets must be confronted. It's an eventual and long, process but one that must be done. The political invades the personal, and history's consequences affect the psychological. The implications are devastating - the present condition or 'shallowness' seemed to have been allowed to occur by the acts of the past. This is not a film that is only understandable by Taiwanese standards. It is a universal portrait of the history inherit in the present.

The haunting power of the film is completely understated and will surely always linger on in the viewer's mind. It may not have the rhapsodic epic profoundness of some of Hou's other films, but it contains the grand humanism that they also have. The film is ultimately extremely encapsulating, and with Hou's formal rigour, style, and rhythm, and the expertly grounded performances it is utterly captivating, and exquisite viewing.

I was introduced to Hou Hsiao-Hsien by Flowers of Shanghai, an exquisite piece of work that spoke of a mature film maker, who had mastered his visual language. I imagine that it would be a similar experience to an introduction to Wong kar Wai or Almovodar with In the Mood for Love or All About My Mother, respectively being pieces where an good director became a great. You finish these types of films wondering where did he (the director) come from intellectually, and where is he going.

Hou's style is subtle, an excellent cinematographer and picture taker, like many of the Asian films (whether this is from a common thread or by accident I don't know). He is not as overtly stylish as Wong Kar-Wai, but the shots he takes and chooses (perhaps the better adjective) are beautiful.

A previous commentator called this style "cinematic masturbation", which I think is an adolescent argument. Just because the points don't hit you over the head doesn't mean they are not being made. This is a political film, dealing with a still sensitive topic. The director definitely cares about the audience. Like anything else, it's the little details that count.

One of those little details is an Ozu film being played on TV in one background shot. Hou has consciously acknowledged Ozu as an influence and his style shows it. The action, so to speak, takes place within the context of the everyday events. The points being made are observed by the routine actions, and unique touches within them.

The most solid point being the commonality of loss, and tragedy between two Taiwanese actresses of different generations. Both lose lovers, and sacrifice children to the events around them.

The other point is the simultaneous affluence and emptiness is modern day life. The actress in the older story is based on a real person, who joined the anti-Japanese resistance in China during WWII. After this, her husband is executed in an anti-communist crackdown in Taiwan. She is both pushed along by events, but shows a determination to live her life and make decisions, This is in contrast to the other story, that of the actress playing (there is a movie within a movie), who is looking back on a life with petty gangsters, drinking and drugs. In material goods she is richer than the older actress ever was, with her upper middle class life, yet poorer in far more many ways. Both are played by the same actress, who handles the two stories well.

In the Hou portfolio, I prefer this to Goodbye South Goodbye, which I felt got a little lost in fancy camera work, but I feel that this is close to Flowers of Shanghai.

If you believe in love no matter what their jobs are, watch this movie. If you believe in the power of a film, watch this one. It is a sad love story of a bar hostess but she shares the same love of a social fighter's.