"The City of Sadness" is a Hou Hsiao-hsien movie that I watched very late. I feel that heavy historical themes, especially movies with a heavy political background, have only recently begun to be accepted. Hou Hsiao-hsien said that he did not use ideology to make this film, but people-oriented, but the political background and history did pose a difficulty in understanding. On the other hand, this difficulty and distance have a special charm.
There is a new understanding of the dialect, starting from "Ruan Lingyu". Different dialects allude to the backgrounds of the characters. In Ruan Lingyu, it is more out of the need to restore history. The boss of Lianhua speaks Cantonese, Ruan Lingyu and Zhang Damin speak Cantonese, and Cai Chusheng speaks Cantonese. , Neighbors naturally speak Shanghainese. These are all history. The language system of this film is so mixed (plus some English), which not only gives people a sense of reality, but also has a charm. Because of such a mixed language system, Shanghai in the 1930s was full of special charm. Later, the Nationalist government wanted to unify the language and required the use of the national language. Of course, this was good and convenient, but to a certain extent, this kind of charm was obliterated.
The language system in "City of Sadness" is more complex, and there are more meanings behind the dialects. The eldest is native, his language is Hokkien, mixed with a little Japanese style, and he is a local person who has never left Taiwan; the second is a person who has been in Shanghai, speaks Shanghai dialect, and deals with Shanghai people. The style is naturally from Shanghai (the boss doesn't like his style, he thinks it is "fashionable", there is more resistance to foreign fashion); the fourth is silent, I thought this character was designed for the purpose of Let him become a symbol of escape, but he still yearns for progress and democracy in the end, a person who can't hear and can't speak, has a language system of its own - that is writing. This system is old-fashioned, with interlaced vernacular and classical Chinese, and a semi-poetic classical charm. This is the language system of the intellectuals at that time; the language system of the hospital and the heroine is Japanese, which is the product of colonial rule and the source of identity conflicts; The background, although unclear, adds an interesting addition to the family's already confusing language system. The most interesting thing is that the characters in the film don't seem to be troubled by this mix of dialects and the inconvenience of communication, and are even able to communicate. In addition, there is an important part, that is, the Kuomintang troops who came to accept Taiwan are the national language (northern language), this kind of official language instead caused the strongest backlash, becoming a symbol of the government and "the other" "Representative of identity. In "Sad City", the national language is incompatible with all dialects (including Japanese), and it is the language that the local people cannot adapt to the most. And because of the official White Terror, the language has a threatening connotation.
Language has become an important symbol for identifying personal identity and even political stance. For example, when the fourth child was questioned on the train, the other party used Japanese to test his identity, and his "inaudible" and "aphasia" not only showed a weakness and powerlessness, but also highlighted the absurdity of the picket team.
The lines in the movie say who wants to be enslaved? The most important thing in the so-called "slavery" process of colonization is not the revision of language.
Taiwan has been educated in Japan for 50 years, and many people don't even speak the local language, only Japanese, which is the first step in losing their identity. There are many young people in Taiwan today who admire Japanese culture and wish they could be Japanese. This is the loss of their cultural identity. Judging from the current situation, the Kuomintang finally successfully promoted Mandarin in Taiwan. The power of time~
Hou Hsiao-hsien is very persistent in dialect, and even asked Tony Leung to learn Shanghai dialect in "Flowers on the Sea". Perhaps for him, a dialect itself It is an identity. If the identity cannot be confirmed, it will cause damage to the character itself. This kind of persistence, I think our domestic films need to be learned a lot, after all, we have such a complex and important dialect system.
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