Legendary puppeteer Li Tien-lu helps tell his own story in Hou Hsiao-hsien masterpiece
THE PUPPETMASTER (XÌ MÈNG RÉNSHĒNG) (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1993)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, September 13, free with museum admission, 7:00
Series runs September 12 – October 17
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
Taiwanese New Wave auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien’s masterpiece, The Puppetmaster, is a beautifully poetic exploration of the art of storytelling. The second film of his history trilogy, coming between 1989’s A City of Sadness and 1995’s Good Men, Good Women, the 1993 work employs three unique methods as it traces the life and career of puppeteer Li Tien-lu from 1909 to 1945, during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. Episodes from Li’s life are re-created, beginning even before his birth, as his father sacrifices his family name and takes his wife’s instead at the request of her clan, with the modern-day Li adding voice-over narration. (The film is based on Li’s memoirs.) Hou also uses Peking opera, theater, and puppet shows to demonstrate Li’s skill and to place the film in artistic and historical context. And the eighty-four-year-old Li, who had already been in three of Hou’s films, appears onscreen several times, right on the set, adding an intimate, personal touch to the proceedings. Hou and cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bin often let the camera remain still for long periods of time, allowing viewers to decide where to look and what to focus on, as if they were watching a live performance. The film features stunning art direction by Chang Hung and Lu Ming-jin and a lovely traditional score by Chen Ming-chang; the stellar cast includes Lin Chung and Lim Giong as Li, Tsai Chen-nan as his father, Yang Li-yin as his stepmother, Liou Hung as his grandfather, Bai Ming Hwa as his grandmother, and Vicky Wei as Lei Tzu.
THE PUPPETMASTER includes several glorious puppet shows
The Puppetmaster is about memory and the interpretation of history, but mostly it’s very much a work about control, from the way Li’s father is dominated by his in-laws to the Japanese officers who rule over the community and even the content of Li’s puppet shows. In the first puppet show, before the opening credits are over, three figures are involved in a scene when suddenly the middle puppet is raised above the others, the arm of the puppeteer visible. In the next show, Hou first zeroes in on the ornate box-stage itself before cutting to a side view, revealing the puppeteer behind the scenes; it is not only a tribute to his subject but also a reminder that the audience, both onscreen and watching the film, is in the hands of a genuine master. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, The Puppetmaster is screening September 13 at 7:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Also like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien” and will be introduced by J. Hoberman. (The series takes its name from a Li quote in The Puppetmaster.) The opening weekend of the festival also includes Hou’s debut feature, Cute Girl, Assayas’s HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien, the sensational Flowers of Shanghai, the coming-of-age tale A Summer at Grandpa’s, 1981’s Cheerful Wind, and the love-story trilogy Three Times.
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s gorgeous Three Times is an evocative, poetic trilogy of tales about life and love in Taiwan, all starring the mesmerizing Shu Qi (Hou’s Millennium Mambo) and the stalwart Chang Chen (Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 and Happy Together). In A Time for Love, set in 1966 and featuring a repeated soft-rock soundtrack, Chen, about to leave for military service, meets May, a pool-hall girl, and promises to write to her even though they have only just met and barely said a word to each other. When he gets a furlough, he goes to the pool hall only to find that she’s on the move, so with Zen-like cool he tries to track her down. A Time for Freedom, a silent film with interstitial dialogue and period music, takes place in an elegant brothel in 1911, where Mr. Chang regularly visits a beautiful courtesan. But while she dreams of him buying out her contract and marrying her, he seems intent on helping out another couple instead. Hou concludes the trilogy with A Time for Youth, set in fast-paced modern-day Taipei, as Jing, an epileptic singer, and Zhen, a motorcycle-riding photographer, embark on a passionate, nearly wordless affair that has serious consequences for their significant others. Three Times is a rare treat for cineastes, a poetic, intelligent, though overly long study of relationships between men and women in a changing Taiwan over the last hundred years, focusing on character, time and place, and the art of filmmaking itself. Three Times is screening September 14 at 7:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Also like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien” and will be introduced by Amy Taubin.
Inspired by her mother’s aging and another family member’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, Sharon Greytak’s Archaeology of a Woman examines the complex relationship between Kate (Tony winner Victoria Clark), a New York City chef, and her mother, Margaret (Oscar nominee Sally Kirkland), a fiercely independent woman who is suffering the beginning stages of dementia. As the film opens, Margaret cannot find her car in a parking lot and reaches out to the police for help. Disoriented, she calls Kate, who is in the midst of passionate sex with her boyfriend (Alex Emanuel). Soon Kate is shuttling back and forth on Metro-North between Manhattan and her mother’s suburban home as Margaret continues having episodes that often turn destructive, to both herself and others. Although she keeps getting more and more forgetful and unsettled, one memory keeps haunting her, something that happened thirty years before and has risen up again to threaten her. Kirkland (Anna, Cold Feet) does all she can with the juicy role, baring her heart and soul — and septuagenarian body — but Greytak’s choppy direction and hole-filled script let the talented Method actor and teacher down. The subplots don’t meld into the main storyline, instead lingering outside as annoying diversions, including scenes with a young police officer (Karl Geary) who takes a liking to Kate, and an older cop, Sergeant Calder (James Murtaugh), who is caught between speculating about Margaret’s past and wanting to be part of her future. Greytak (The Love Lesson, Hearing Voices) never achieves a flow in the film, which plays out like a series of disjointed moments that don’t come together, as if she had too much to say but not enough time to say it all, unfortunately choosing melodrama over nuance. Archaeology of a Woman opens September 12 at the Village East; Greytak and Kirland will participate in Q&As following the 7:00 screening on Friday night (moderated by Michael Musto) and the 4:25 shows on Saturday and Sunday.
