Di si zhang hua (2010) Reviews

• Portraits of Life

  cheetat2010-12-13

  In both the film's opening and ending, there's this scene where the protagonist is walking on a small 2-way road with the Chinese character "慢" (meaning "slow") painted on both lanes. This I thought was trying to tell the audience to take things slowly, naturally. Already in this opening, I had goose bumps as I had often felt the strong need for our society to keep the pace of life slow... The story begins with the passing of the protagonist's father. Supposedly grievous, the protagonist did not show any sorrow. He merely placed a piece of tissue paper on his father's face, hoping that the sucking in / blowing out of the tissue paper would signal his breath/death. Throughout the film, humour and misery are arranged to stick closely together. More often than not, immediately after feeling sad for the characters, the scene changes and we're brought into another sub-story. I felt we're deprived of every chance to fully empathize with the characters. But this is life, life moves too quickly, and I guess this film wishes that the audience would take life (and death) and other depressing conditions in a light-hearted manner. The first 3 portraits were the protagonist's father, his good friend, and his elder brother. There was this old school attendant who told him a fable about frogs caught and placed inside a can sitting on fire. Most frogs were roasted to death, but 1 or 2 managed to leap to survival. The old man wanted him to be like the frogs which had jumped out of predicament - to be free from the concealed agony for his father's death, free from the illicit behaviour his good friend had taught him, and free from missing his brother. The 4th portrait would be himself, but we do not get to see this because we wouldn't know, if the protagonist could really embark on living a brand new life (or continue to be stuck to the wretched life that many others are leading). The 4 portraits reflect how certain societal fragments in Taiwan cope with their lives. Every scene/setting is carefully picked and meticulously shot. Every scene/setting is beautiful, be it surreal, pastoral, nostalgic, in motion or in repose. There is great cinematography, great musical arrangement, great acting, so there's really nothing to nitpick about. No wonder it's The Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year at the Golden Horse Awards, won the FIPRESCI Prize, and Chung Mong-Hong winning Best Director.

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• An outstanding work of new genre!

  LinJason2010-12-07

  Never seeming to feature a strong main story, this Taiwanese film almost finds itself tripping over the major rule of cinema. You will realise that the story of attraction actually resides within the well-established characters who are pleasurable to watch for the entire span of the film. All emotions evoked within the audience derive strangely from the wide range of silver screen personalities instead of the plot, a great example of genre defying work of talent. There is this unspeakable quality to this film, a film that evokes so much emotions through all the well-written characters and yet it is handled (superbly) by Director Chung Mong-hong (who is recently awarded the Golden Horse Best Director for this film) in such a silent fashion in reminiscence of Ozu. Xiang is a silent protagonist by nature, as we later learn that it is the repression due to poor treatment he receives from most adults in his life. He chatters with a vast amount of pure (but often crude) naivety and curiosity only to adults whom he can open his heart to. The privileged individuals are none other than the elderly school caretaker he befriends after his father's passing, and the similarly estranged twenty-odd boy "Big Gun" whose sharp tongue provides a great deal of casual hilarity for the audience. The caretaker is probably an ideal fatherly/grandfatherly figure to Xiang while Big Gun is possibly a dear elder brother to him. These two fill up the void in Xiang's pitiful life. One scavenges through desolated residences for scrap items of value while the other instigates petty theft and a daylight robbery of school children. Although these two perform morally questionable activities to tide them by every single day, the main focus here is the kind intentions and pure hearts of these two that are well-received by Xiang as valuable lessons in life. On a side note, Big Gun comes from a pitiful family background as well. We then move on to the darker characters in Xiang's life ahead of him. Xiang's mother, an attractive bar hostess of her age, reappears to be in custody of his well-being after the death of his father, leading him to stay with her and his new step-father who disapproves of his presence. We are introduced to an imaginary elder brother of Xiang here as he often appears in his dreams ever since moving in with his mother. This person truly exists albeit missing for several years after his mother moved from Mainland China to Taiwan. We soon get to learn about the shortcomings of this new family where the (ex-convict) mother views marriage as a mere convenience in achieving a better life while the step-father sports lurking violent behaviours underneath his obnoxious facade. The lesser of evils will be Xiang's mother who is incapable of caring for him despite having the desire to as she tries hard to make ends meet. Xiang is a silent character in front of these two who doesn't care much about him. As mentioned prior, this film essentially has no serious story going on. It is not about the destination but the process. The enticing factor comes from the character interactions that revolve around Xiang, where dialogues are always a pleasant surprise as they are seldom heard elsewhere and unpredictable. Aided by excellent screen writing the characters are very much alive in the audience's mind, be it the benign or malicious ones. Often silent and aloft, the camera work is designed in such a way that it allows us to feel as if we are watching the on screen development as an observing third party, almost like a spirit's perspective. Perhaps the audience is purposely casted as the ghost of Xiang's imaginary elder brother, as it is most noticeable in a specific self-confessional scene where the stepfather reveals certain dark secrets of the past. Of course, this is just my view based on a wild imagination. If you are wondering how the film gets its title, you will know that it is better to unravel this mystery by watching it. All I can say is, every portrait depicts an individual (or part thereof) who matters in Xiang's life, one where he pursues and discovers both a lost childhood and coming-of-age maturity through an array of personalities around him. An outstanding work of genre-experimentation by the talented Chung Mong-Hong, one to watch for.

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• A flawed but ultimately quietly affecting portrait of a young boy's search for his identity

  moviexclusive2010-12-13

  In his sophomore feature film outing, director Chung Mong-Hong has crafted a quietly affecting drama that couldn't be more different from his debut- the urban black comedy "Parking". "The Fourth Portrait" is Chung's attempt to paint a bleak yet realistic look at one child's search for his identity amidst a turbulent society fraught with issues of poverty, domestic violence and foreign immigrants. That child is 10-year-old boy Xiang (newcomer Bi Xiao-hai), who in the film's brilliant opening scene, watches his ailing father pass away in hospital. From the very beginning, Chung lets his audience know that he is not out for cheap sentimentality- rather than portray Xiang as the pitiful child suddenly bereft of his father, Chung depicts him as quite the sharp fellow, smart enough to place a napkin over his father's mouth so he doesn't have to lean in all the time to know when his father has breathed his last breath. The dad's funeral reveals the first of four portraits drawn by Xiang, a somewhat cartoonish drawing of his father used as the funeral photo to largely amusing effect. Like the first portrait, the ensuing ones are a reflection of the people whose relationships have made a significant difference in his life- including a portly loutish thief nicknamed "Big Gun" (TV veteran Na Dow) who introduces him to a life of crime and his missing older brother whom he has mysterious dreams of. Both follow from social services' decision to send him to live with his estranged mom (Hao Lei), a prostitute now married to an abusive fishmonger (Leon Dai). Xiang feels acutely that he is unwelcome in the family, and so finds company instead with "Big Gun". The unlikely friendship is a welcome source of broad humour in the film, culminating in a hilarious scene where he paints the second portrait as part of his schoolwork. Whereas the first half of the film still had some levity, Chung takes the latter half in a decidedly darker course with the subplot of Chung's older brother's unsolved disappearance- also apparent from the nature of the third portrait. The change in tone is handled quite abruptly and there is a clear sense that Chung and his co-screenwriter Tu Hsiang-Wen have deliberately chosen to eschew narrative continuity in favour of episodic encounters of Xiang with various characters. As a result, the film feels uneven, a whole less than the sum of its distinct parts. Still if the film manages to remain consistently absorbing, it is due to the uniformly excellent performances of each and every one of its cast. Hao Lei is heart-wrenching as Xiang's mother, particularly in one scene where she relates her struggles to Xiang's teacher of surviving as a Chinese immigrant in a foreign land- her acting certainly deserving of the recent Golden Horse Best Supporting Actress win. But the biggest praise should be reserved for newcomer Bi Xiao-hai whose unaffected performance and quiet magnetism carries the entire film from start to finish. Along the way, Chung briefly hints at societal issues of poverty, domestic violence and immigration but doesn't dwell enough at them to make much of an impression. Instead, he keeps the film steadfastly focused as a slow-burning coming-of-age story of a young boy grappling with the changing relationships in his life. The last portrait is a befitting end to this journey, but viewers are well advised that it will take patience to get there. For those who do, you'll be rewarded with a moving portrait of finding one's identity.

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