a litlte rain and wind for the love of film

When I decided to live abroad for a year, I was worried about how I would sustain my cinephilia. I still get weekly e-mails about Chicago film happenings and pout a little as I see Ulrich Seidl's Paradise Trilogy, Assayas' SOMETHING IN THE AIR, and other notable new releases and revivals go by.

Taipei however isn't a bad place for a cinephile to be. Spot Film House (managed by Hou Hsiao-hsien) has two locations, playing a handful of art films every month (though only a third of them have English subtitles), and surprisingly, there has already been three film festivals since I moved here (with most screenings having English subtitles). The Taipei Film Festival is currently running, and their Filmmakers in Focus program has a swoon-worthy five Wang Bing films playing.

TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS

But I teach most afternoons and evenings, making attendance difficult. If I was going to make any film, it was going to be his nine-plus hour epic documentary TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS, and luckily it was playing on a Friday, a day where I can move my classes around somewhat easily. But then earlier in the week, news of an approaching typhoon came into play. Growing up landlocked in the Midwest, I had little concept of what that could mean. I was told during training that instead of snow days, schools have typhoon days here, but it's still a little different because snow days tend to be announced in the aftermath of a storm, while typhoon days are announced in anticipation of one possibly coming.

Projected Path of My First Typhoon

So I asked around and was told not to bike and that the MRT might shut down due to flooding, but that buses and taxis would still be running. So I went as planned, figuring they would close the theater if it was really that dangerous. The only thing slightly intimidating was that if they did make announcements or things got really bad, I would have a language barrier blocking information. For the first time in months, I left my bike at home (but not without long deliberation) and walked to the MRT with returning bus numbers in hand. 

When I arrived at the theater I got a mass text from my manager saying classes were cancelled from afternoon on, and judging by the number of kids I saw on my way, regular schools were closed as well. (Again, not speaking the language, or having a television for that matter, leaves me out of the loop.) The screening had two, thirty-minute intermissions between parts, and each time I went outside expecting a storm but only finding it drizzling with a foreboding sky. Even after the film finished, the weather seemed fine: rainy, a bit windy, though for 9 o'clock at night, the sky had a rather odd pinkish color. I took my time getting home, stopping for dinner, and enjoying a slow walk in flip-flops through the rain.

But now it's around 4am Saturday morning, and Taipei is in the eye of the typhoon. I went outside twice because I enjoy watching stormy weather, and my window only faces a bunch of other windows, yielding no view of the streets, sky, or ground below. The first time I went downstairs, I still saw a few elderly ladies, draped in ponchos, biking home against the wind, and I felt bad about wimping out and not biking to Spot. Then a few hours later I could really hear the wind's chaotic whirls, and I went downstairs again, this time seeing store signs being stripped away and dragged down the road by tumultuous winds. I saw a bright flash of white light in the corner high school's yard that I thought was lightening, but there was no thunder. Perhaps it was a tree taking out a power line, as the street briefly lost electricity afterward. In fact there didn't seem to be any accompanying lightening or thunder, which I found really odd.

I live on a road (versus a smaller lane or alley), so the sidewalk is covered by the overhang of the buildings (common for cities with rainy seasons), and I was able to safely stand behind a concrete support column, blocking any debris coming my way. There were still a handful scooters on the road, but the drivers where cautiously inching along with obvious apprehension. One came to the red light and actually stopped there, in the chaos of the storm, despite there being no other traffic in sight (I have never seen a citizenry obey traffic rules so ardently as here). I went a few doors down to my 24-hour 7-Eleven (it's Taiwan, so there are two within 50ft of my building's front door), and when I walked in with a smile, they looked at me funny. I told the one employee who recognizes me that it was my first typhoon, and she gave me this look like I'd said it was the first time I'd ever seen rain. As a foreigner, it's a spectacle worth staying up for, but most of the locals spend typhoon days, with caution, just going about their usual routines. If anything, on severe weather days the many malls just get extra crowds.

* * *

"Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks. Those are the kind of films I like." Kiarostami

So as for TIE XI QU, I don't mind saying that I dozed off a couple times during its nine hour run time. Almost enthnographic in its approach, the film documents the final remnants of Shenyang's once booming industrial Tiexi district mostly through observational long-takes without narration and only a sparse number of intertitles, succinctly displaying the most basic facts of place and history . "Rust" (part one of three) focused on some of the few remaining employees of the state-owned, debt-ridden factories, as they talked with one another about their dwindling or non-existent pay and inevitable unemployment. "Remannts" mainly followed a group of teenagers, loafers given no possible future, as their rundown shantytown nears demolition and their families face forced relocation. (This segment had strong parallels to Pedro Costa's COLOSSAL YOUTH.) "Rails" followed the supply-line railway employees with the tracks themselves having been a prominent component of the two prior parts.

One-eyed Old Du (below), having spent most of his life in Tiexi, becomes the most emblematic figure of the film. A once security guard now living illegally on railway property as a scrap scavenger, he hops on the trains to move around and mingle with the operators. He takes pride in his abilities, ostensibly disregarding horrific conditions, and perseveres as circumstances become increasingly desperate, boasting to the camera about his connections with the security staff, who allow only him to live on company property. But his clout eventually runs out, and Old Du gets arrested, while his 17-year-old son is told that the family has to evacuate immediately. A later scene shows his son, not knowing when his father will return, break down in tears while sharing with the camera pictures of "how the family used to be." I realized that despite all the devastation displayed in the past eight hours, this was the first time someone was shown crying in front of the camera.

Old Du and His Son, TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS

From 1999 to 2001, Wang Bing documented Tiexi through a juxaposition of broad shots of abandoned industrial landscapes and cramped, intimate scenes among the last of its denizens. Housing and factories have become the decaying skeleton of what once was, and the people just as worn and defeated as the crumbling infrastructure. The factories struggle to operate as insufficient raw materials are delivered each day, and the workers in turn receive an equally inadequate amount of assistance from outside. Shot with a simple handheld digital video camera, Wang achieves a remarkable immersion into the most quotidian of moments through persistent long-takes whether they be in dilapidated factory break rooms; claustrophobic, shantytown houses; or a cramped railcar making its way in the dark through the ruins of abandoned industry. The subjects featured sometimes address the camera directly, not prompted by Wang, interview-style, but rather by their own volition. Most of the time however, they carry on as if no longer aware of the camera's persistent presence. Cuts between scenes are abrupt, especially between each of the three parts, and the digital image quality is far from pristine, but both work in conjunction with the material.

When I told a co-worker I was taking the day off to see a film (something I find embarrassing to explain to anyone who only watches movies for entertainment), he immediately asked, "can't you download it online?" I wouldn't be able to achieve the same experience if I watched it on my laptop, as I don't have the discipline to stop myself from pausing it to check my e-mail, get a snack, or even go to the bathroom (versus waiting for designated breaks to do such things). Beyond discussing screen size, sound, and the presence of other viewers, watching this particular documentary in a theater becomes a test of endurance, an immersion into the district of Tiexi that would inevitably lose momentum if I could come in and out of it as I pleased; theaters are an important part of cinema to me.

Maybe this entry should have been split into two separate ones, but it's late and I don't feel like messing with it anymore.