Film review: A Brighter Summer Day (1991)

I doubt if I'll sell anyone on this film who hasn't already decided to see it, because it's rather a downer and it's nearly FOUR HOURS long (we watched it in three installments).  However, it is widely regarded as a masterpiece (as is the last film by the same director which we've also seen (also a downer and very long) called Yi Yi), and I know I will be thinking about it for a long time.  I did see it described by admirers as a "coming of age" film - which is a bit like describing Ivan's Childhood or Kes as the same.  It certainly centers around young adolescents (although the cast is as sprawling as one of the characters' favorite books (War and Peace - I have to say, he described it in such a way that it sounded gripping) - apparently there are over 100 speaking roles) but there's a perpetual sense of dread hanging over the whole affair such that you never really feel the usual joy you get from films of that category.  You do get a very vivid sense of a time (the turn of the 50s into 60s) and place (Taipei, Taiwan), and apparently the director was meticulous in recreating not just the look, but the way people spoke then (although, of course, we were just following the subtitles). The central character is a tall skinny boy of about 13 whose real name is Zhang Zhen (which is the actor's name, too, and he's gone on to be in many things, most recently the first of the new Dune films) but whom everyone calls Xiao Si'r, which apparently means "little 4th," because he is the 4th of 5 children (that alternate between boys and girls).  The film begins with his father at a meeting with a teacher who is informing him that Si'r has done poorly at an exam and so has to be moved to a night school.  

Apparently these are less prestigious.  They don't go all night but they do seem to let out when it's dark.  The father was a peasant in China who educated himself and married a teacher, and they fled with their family to Taiwan when the Nationalists, whose side they were on, were driven out by the Communists.  It's hard to pick up all the politics from the film, but I gather the Nationalists set up an authoritarian government in Taiwan that lasted into the '80s (and had just ended when this film was made), and people from China were regarded with suspicion.  The father is very principled, so much so that at a later meeting with S'ir's teachers he actually argues S'ir into a worse demerit than he had been facing because the father regarded it as unfair.  The father's fate runs parallel to the turbulent events in S'ir's life - his younger generation is becoming more estranged from their parents because of the huge influx of American influences, and in particular, Elvis.  The funniest part of the movie is watching Taiwanese youth, and in particular, S'ir's tiny friend Cat, singing Elvis songs phonetically.  

S'ir's oldest sister transcribes the lyrics for Cat.  As you can imagine, even though the film is full of Ozu-esque long unbroken shots, and Tarkovsky-esque closeups of liminal spaces, a lot can happen in 4 hours of screen time, so I won't try to cover it here, but the arc of the film is S'ir sliding further into juvenile delinquency, through little fault of his own (part of it is feeling powerless, not just in affairs of the heart - he falls for a girl called Ming, 

who is first the girl of the missing charismatic leader (oddly named "Honey") of the gang S'ir is loosely affiliated with, and then later it seems she is many people's girl and no-one's - but also in what is happening to his father and thus his family under the corrupt government and secret police.  Main events: the gang is called the Little Park boys and is under the dubious leadership of Honey's lieutenant Sly (well-named).  He's a weaselly little toe-rag but his father owns a dance hall that the Elvis-impersonators long to play at.  The Little Park gang is at war with a rival gang called the 217s, whose druggy leader hangs out at a pool hall (that S'ir's older brother gets hustled at, driving him to pawn his mother's watch, which means the eldest sister, she of the transcribing skills, has to give him money to buy it back).  Sly agrees to a truce when the leader meets up with him, which is essentially a sell-out, but driven by a desire to make money off the hall, because the point of the truce is to have a concert there.  The night of the concert, Honey shows up from hiding, dressed as a sailor.  

He's been laying low after killing a 217 member supposedly over Ming, and demands that the 217 leader come out and fight him.  

(Earlier in the day he hangs out with S'ir, which is where we hear about how he read War and Peace in hiding.)  SPOILER: when he's not expecting it, the rival pushes him into oncoming traffic and kills him.  This prompts members of the Little Park gang to make a deal with another, older gang, one of whose members was friendly with Honey, to take out the 217 leader and anyone in the clubhouse, and then move on to Sly.  The scene in the pool hall is a real standout set piece: it takes place in a typhoon with the power out, and the younger Little Park gang members are just not prepared for how brutal their new allies are going to be.  Suffice to say Honey's killer gets his, as do an awful lot of his compatriots.  You'd think this would be the climax of the film, but we're only about halfway through!  Weirdly, no mention is made of this incident - none of the adults seem aware that a large number of teenagers have been brutally murdered in their neighborhood.  It doesn't help that the night of the raid S'ir's father gets hauled in by the secret police, so that when he arrives home, soaked and shell-shocked, nobody gives a shit about his problems.  And it's pretty much downhill from there, even though he has a rich friend who does his best to initiate him into the world of partying and girls, as well as shooting guns.  

It's not as if S'ir becomes evil - he actually saves the life of the obnoxious, drunk local shop owner (shortly after contemplating clouting him with a rock) and he clearly has a rigid code of honor, but somehow it gets twisted and things gallop towards tragedy.  And lest you think it melodramatic, it's actually based on a real event from that time and place.  I'm not sure what lesson we're supposed to learn (or what the significance is of the flashlight, which is a running theme, or the announcement on the radio of people who have successfully passed important exams, which bookends the film) but it manages both to feel very specific and universal, a West Side Story/Catcher in the Rye but in the setting of the infusion of mainland Chinese into Taiwan at the same time that Western influences were also flooding the island.  More from the Guardian here.