"The ashes that fall on people's heads in the times are like a mountain, as heavy as a mountain, but they have to learn to bounce like ashes." The whole movie "Sad City" tells the whole history of Taiwan from its recovery to 1947 through a family story. Condensed together, it focused on the "228" incident, a sensitive topic in Taiwan at that time. Different from documentaries, director Hou Hsiao-hsien's method makes "City of Sadness" a flesh-and-blood story rather than a cold historical record. The Lin family in the film is a family of native Taiwanese. Through the ordinary life experiences of the four brothers of the Lin family, they describe the tragedy and helplessness of a family in the great era, and let us feel the grief and struggle of the Taiwanese in the event. The whole film creates a depressing and pathetic atmosphere. If "City of Sadness" is a narration or review of a piece of Taiwan's grand history, it records the desolation of Taiwan's destiny in history, but director Hou Hsiao-hsien used the joys and sorrows of a family as the main line to make everything seem plain and relaxed, and use fragility and perishability as the main line. The outer shell wraps the heaviness underneath, so that the film is full of tension. This tension is due to Hou Hsiao-hsien's visual and sound techniques. In the camera movement, Hou Hsiao-hsien's proper use of fixed camera positions and lenses outlines a slow "life flow". With Hou Hsiao-hsien's expression, time is more in line with common sense, and each period of time is connected instead of jumping. Hou Hsiao-hsien's long shot and the narration method of watching from the sidelines in "City of Sadness" maximizes his calm and restrained techniques, occasionally including deliberate understatement of emotional ups and downs, reflecting a historical view of reality, a sense of distance and a sense of distance. calm down. In addition, director Hou Hsiao-hsien also used a lot of empty shots to make people blend with scenes. He also intentionally gave the audience space for imagination and thinking, and created an open structure. For example, the ending of the film did not explain the fourth brother's ending. In terms of space, Director Hou Hsiao-hsien likes a hierarchical layout. He often shoots from a distance, and shoots the door frames, windows and other objects in front of him into the lens together to construct a layered picture, which reflects his sense of restraint. Grasp the different scenes (medium shot, panoramic view, long shot, and close shot, close-up less). At the same time, it also presents the characters and their living environment together, restoring the real life at that time. The existence of the scenery makes the characters no longer isolated and monotonous individuals, but full-fledged and living people. Finally, in "Sad City", the young people's love for the country is mixed with anger, but they never forget the responsibility on their shoulders. They leave their homeland when they are alive and return to their homeland when they die. They sacrificed their blood and life for the nation and the country. In Taiwan, the change of rule, the sense of helplessness in social unrest, the mountain The river is broken and the wind is fluttering, and the experience of life is ups and downs. It also gave us a new understanding of the formation of the current situation in Taiwan. We still hope that Taiwan, which has been through hardships and has been bullied, can return to the embrace of the motherland as soon as possible to realize the reunification of the motherland at home and abroad. "They all said that the ending of my movie was very sad. I said it was desolation. Desolation has a sense of time and space." - Hou Hsiao-hsien
View more about A City of Sadness reviews
