14
May/11

TAIWAN STORIES: CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY FILM FROM TAIWAN — A TIME TO LIVE, A TIME TO DIE

14
May/11

Hou Hsiao-hsien revisits his childhood in classic of the Taiwanese New Wave

A TIME TO LIVE, A TIME TO DIE (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1985)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St.
Sunday, May 15, 4:15
Series runs through May 19
212-875-5610
www.filmlinc.com

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Taiwanese New Wave masterpiece, A Time to Live, a Time to Die, is a bittersweet, nostalgic look back at his childhood, after his father’s government job moves the family from Mainland China just as the Cultural Revolution is taking effect. The semiautobiographical film is seen through the eyes of young Ah-ha (You Anshun) as his father (Tien Feng) suffers ill health, his older brother gets harassed by a local gang, his mother (Mei Fang) tries to maintain the household, and his grandmother (Tang Ju-yun) keeps getting lost, being brought back by rickshaw drivers who demand ever-larger payments. The family lives in a Japanese-style home that is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing, with Hou favoring long shots with limited camera movement, calmly shifting from scene to scene as Ah-ha grows up into a teenager (Hsiao Ai) and discovers a whole new set of problems and reality. The middle film in Hou’s coming-of-age trilogy (in between 1984’s A Summer at Grandpa’s and 1986’s Dust in the Wind), A Time to Live is a deeply personal, intimate, unforgettable story of life, death, and the bonds of family. The film is screening May 15 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Taiwan Stories: Classic and Contemporary Film from Taiwan” series, which continues through May 19 and also includes such classic works as Pai Ching-jui’s Home Sweet Home (1970), Li Xing and Li Jia’s Oyster Girl (1964), and King Hu’s A Touch of Zen (1969) as well as such modern films as Doze Niu’s Monga (2008), Chen Wen-tang’s Tears (2009), and Chen Yu-Hsun, Hou Chi-jan, and Shen Ko-Shang’s Juliets (2010).