SPOILER insofar as events towards the end are mentioned
This study of family life is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's most personal and deeply felt film. The voice-over narration by the central character is clearly autobiographical and there can be little doubt that these are recollections of the director's childhood and in particular of his parents. As in other Taiwanese films by Hou and his outstanding compatriot, Edward Yang, a sense of history is crucial to understanding how the families they portray think and feel. These are Chinese cut off from their mainland roots by revolution. For the adults the dream is to return and it is a question of making do with the island as a temporary refuge, albeit one that has become all too permanent. For the senile grandmother reality is poignantly blurred and she imagines her mainland home to be just down the road. Meanwhile the children happily play their games, spinning tops and occasionally wondering at such mysteries as telegraph poles being erected, until adolescence brings disillusionment, their loss of innocence manifesting itself in gang conflict. In an attempt to show things as they are, Hou eschews narrative connections which is why his films sometimes seem confusing at first acquaintance. How many young members of this family are there for instance? In itself this is rather unimportant as the interest mainly centres on Ah-ha the autobiographical son. It is only as we get into the film that we realise that the boy has three brothers, one of them much older and a sister. This is a film that does not give up its secrets during its first half-hour, so much so that whenever I watch it, I start by wondering if I have overrated it. It seems sketchy and formless - a wealth of domestic detail not leading anywhere in particular. Then suddenly there is a sequence that tears me apart. During a powercut the asthmatic father, who has long been in poor health, dies. This unleashes a torrent of family grief so powerfully traumatic that it is almost without equal in cinema. Only Satyajit Ray in his "Apu" trilogy has captured family bereavement as movingly. From this point onward the film exerts a compelling power. The middle section alludes to the type of youth gang warfare that is explored more fully in Yang,s "A Brighter Summer Day". Death dominates the final third of the film , first the lingering one of the mother who refuses cancer treatment and then the grandmother whom those younger members left behind unwittingly neglect. We as Westerners can perhaps empathise with young adolescents placed in this position, but, in the eyes of the Eastern mortician, they are irredeemably guilty of filial neglect. Although "The Time to Live and the Time to Die" is arguably Hou's greatest work, it is at the same time his most depressing. Like Helma Sanders-Brahms in "Germany, Pale Mother", a film depressing almost to the point of morbidity, the director forces us to confront aspects of life we would rather not think about, but by so doing enriches our understanding of the human condition in a way that only the very greatest can achieve.
This study of family life is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's most personal and deeply felt film. The voice-over narration by the central character is clearly autobiographical and there can be little doubt that these are recollections of the director's childhood and in particular of his parents. As in other Taiwanese films by Hou and his outstanding compatriot, Edward Yang, a sense of history is crucial to understanding how the families they portray think and feel. These are Chinese cut off from their mainland roots by revolution. For the adults the dream is to return and it is a question of making do with the island as a temporary refuge, albeit one that has become all too permanent. For the senile grandmother reality is poignantly blurred and she imagines her mainland home to be just down the road. Meanwhile the children happily play their games, spinning tops and occasionally wondering at such mysteries as telegraph poles being erected, until adolescence brings disillusionment, their loss of innocence manifesting itself in gang conflict. In an attempt to show things as they are, Hou eschews narrative connections which is why his films sometimes seem confusing at first acquaintance. How many young members of this family are there for instance? In itself this is rather unimportant as the interest mainly centres on Ah-ha the autobiographical son. It is only as we get into the film that we realise that the boy has three brothers, one of them much older and a sister. This is a film that does not give up its secrets during its first half-hour, so much so that whenever I watch it, I start by wondering if I have overrated it. It seems sketchy and formless - a wealth of domestic detail not leading anywhere in particular. Then suddenly there is a sequence that tears me apart. During a powercut the asthmatic father, who has long been in poor health, dies. This unleashes a torrent of family grief so powerfully traumatic that it is almost without equal in cinema. Only Satyajit Ray in his "Apu" trilogy has captured family bereavement as movingly. From this point onward the film exerts a compelling power. The middle section alludes to the type of youth gang warfare that is explored more fully in Yang,s "A Brighter Summer Day". Death dominates the final third of the film , first the lingering one of the mother who refuses cancer treatment and then the grandmother whom those younger members left behind unwittingly neglect. We as Westerners can perhaps empathise with young adolescents placed in this position, but, in the eyes of the Eastern mortician, they are irredeemably guilty of filial neglect. Although "The Time to Live and the Time to Die" is arguably Hou's greatest work, it is at the same time his most depressing. Like Helma Sanders-Brahms in "Germany, Pale Mother", a film depressing almost to the point of morbidity, the director forces us to confront aspects of life we would rather not think about, but by so doing enriches our understanding of the human condition in a way that only the very greatest can achieve.