The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Asian Films list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
Based on co-scenarist Chu Tien-wen’s childhood, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Dongdong de jiaqi revolves around Tung-Tung, an eleven-year-old boy who, along with Ting-Ting, his four-year-old sister, spends a summer in the country with maternal grandparents and his teenaged uncle, while Mother is in hospital. This is the first part of Hou’s Coming-of-Age trilogy.
The Taiwanese film admits a wealth of incidents, and only the scarcest amount of plot, as Hou patiently, unhurriedly reflects on how children often feel lost amongst adults in the adult world, where they are rarely listened to and largely inhabit a shared world of their own. We watch a turtle race they conduct. They set loose wild birds a neighbor has caught and caged. They swim in the river. A boy tells Ting-Ting, who is watching, to go away: “Your eyes will grow germs!” Left out (again, is the sense of it), Ting-Ting retaliates by silently gathering up the boys’ clothes bank side and tossing these to the current—this, after observing the motion of a train.
Dim-ma, “madwoman” with a tattered umbrella, is mentally slow. She is introduced in a high overhead shot from the perspective of boys in a giant, leafy tree: a projection of Hou’s wish to protect her even as one of the boys scorns her. Dim-ma snatches Ting-Ting in the nick of time from railroad tracks, carrying her piggyback to safety. Dim-ma has been raped and is pregnant. Adults discuss what needs to be done.
Uncle, once he is tossed out by Grandpa, lives with the girl he has impregnated. The couple marry. Respect in marriage, the one officiating explains, is a building block of society.
Numerous themes come together in this complex, beautiful film. One is this: for Chu and Hou, the birth of their feminist consciousness.
B(U)Y THE BOOK
MY BOOK, A Short Chronology of World Cinema, IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM THE SANDS FILMS CINEMA CLUB IN LONDON. USING EITHER OF THE LINKS BELOW, ACCESS THE ADVERTISEMENT FOR THIS BOOK, FROM WHICH YOU CAN ORDER ONE OR MORE COPIES OF IT. THANKS.
Dennis Grunes 