THE TIME TO LIVE AND THE TIME TO DIE (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1985)

About a quarter of Hou Hsiao-hsien's film of his childhood passed before I became ensnared in its soft rhythm and transfixed by its emotional depth. The experience was much like watching Cafe Lumiere (a less dramatic film) and slowly realizing how much lied under the quiet exteriors of its characters. I wonder if I was more ambivalent toward Millennium Mambo because it begins with such a masterful, hypnotic shot that even articulates a possible rhythm to the film- Vicky's dreamlike inability to leave Hao-Hao- but ends up being dull and quite lifeless.

The Time to Live and the Time to Die is dark but honest, unobtrusive, and humanistic. Character motivations are so unemphatic that familiar coming-of-age tropes seem to take place naturally. As I've seen in other Hou films, scenes are sometimes constructed in a way that makes it unclear where the main characters are fixed or if they are present at all. This could speak to the family's history as emigrants to Taiwan from China (the grandmother perpetually getting lost trying to walk back), or perhaps to the modest ambitions- to be teachers or members of the military- that seem to lie on the fringes of their everyday concerns. In a film where dying is so inevitable and assured, living seems to be far more uncertain.