A Brighter Summer Day

Brace yourself. In 1949, heavy fighting on mainland China came to an end. When the dust had settled the Chinese Communist Party had control of the mainland. The Kuomintang and all those who didn't wish to be under a communist regime fled to Taiwan. The "Great Leap Forward" and the subsequent "Cultural Revolution" ensued in Red China.

Taiwan, which had been struggling with Japanese rule for decades, now had the new challenge of dealing with mainland Chinese refugees; understandably, these refugees had difficulties assimilating into the island. As, A Brighter Summer Day, begins we read the following intertitles:

"Millions of Mainland Chinese fled to Taiwan with the National Government after its civil war defeat by the Chinese Communists in 1949. Their children were brought up in an uneasy atmosphere created by the parents' own uncertainty about the future. Many formed street gangs to search for identity and to strengthen their sense of security."

The film, a nearly four hour-long faux-biopic, is incredibly ambitious. The subject matter (a fourteen-year-old murder case), the one hundred or so amateur actors (many of them youth), the movie length, the near disregard for cinematic conventions, is all astounding coming from any experienced director. But, Edward Yang was only on his forth feature film: it remains one of the seminal films to have come out of the Taiwanese New Wave.

It is not a conventionally entertaining movie; it is actually difficult to watch. There are long moments where the film seems to drag, with the same painful mundanity at which life can crawl. Equally, there are moments filled with profound feeling, pure beauty, innocence, humor, strife... honestly, the whole gambit of what can be experienced in ghetto family life.

The photographic eye of Yang is remarkable, but his audacious efforts to extend our gaze on something we might tend to overlook is very effective. At the same time, a lot is expected of the viewer to fill in narrative gaps (which may seem surprising considering the film lasts four hours). The understated sequence of events, the subtly mounting tension, and complex, rich plot all build up only to come crashing down like a wave against the rocks, leaving reflective silence in its place.

There is no way to do Yang's masterpiece justice on a blog, so I won't even try. Its sufficient to say that the ending murder scene and subsequent unpacking scene contain the very essence of film. There is great, real tragedy here, but there are undertones and applicable lessons to withdraw, as well. With so many parallel difficulties in western ghettos the world over, there is much to conjecture about in regards to education policy, discipline, youth sexuality, community life, violence, etc. Further issues about personal morals, relative ethics, cultural heritage, cultural surrogacy, and family life abound.

One of the more tangible sentiments of the film is the knowledge that life survives tragedy. Let me explain: tragedy is unavoidable, we try each day to shore ourselves up, protect our children, educate ourselves, control our little world. Yet, we all live with the knowledge that we are only delaying inevitable and unforeseeable circumstances (the father of S'hi epitomizes this concept in the story). A resigned and fatalistic feeling, yes; but, life does go on. If we are the ones lucky enough to endure living, there is much to live for, and much to be done.