New Taiwanese Cinema

As the university prepares to celebrate Duke's engagement in the developing world during its "Duke in Depth" weekend, Feb. 25-26, Duke's Screen/Society has begun a spring film series that focuses on East Asia.

On Monday evening, members of the Duke community gathered in Griffith Film Theater to watch one of the films in the "Cine-East: East Asian Cinema" film series.

The opening sequence of lush vegetation and dark tunnels revealed 1960s Taiwan in "Dust in the Wind," a film directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The film marks a time when modernization clashed with Taiwan's traditional society.

Series co-organizer Guo-Juin Hong, a Chinese literature and culture professor, has chosen both classic and recent films to highlight a new cinematic movement that he says is taking hold in Taiwan, placing that country in the international spotlight.

"Taiwan has a really rich cinematic history even though it seems to be marginalized and feels less familiar. It's good to bring Taiwanese cinema to campus and the larger community so we can show that it is diverse and that Taiwan is a cinematic entity," said Hong.

"Dust in the Wind" tells the story of two teenagers, Wan and Huen, who migrate to Taipei after living in poverty in a small mining town. It is a portrait of Taiwanese society at a particular moment when young men were drafted into the army while tensions with mainland China ran high. Director Hsiao-Hsien conveyed strong emotions between the two teens using a minimalist approach. Little is said between the girl and boy, and the film is tinged with melancholy as it meditates on the travails of youth and young love.

"This is very much a film that is aware of itself as a film," said Rey Chow, a Duke literature professor. "This world that he shows us is one in which people connect very differently. These are two adolescents that are obviously deeply connected with each other, but throughout the entire film they have not touched each other once. So how is the profundity of their connection expressed through the film? I think it is exchanged through glances."

There is a moment in the film when Wan intently watches his girlfriend, Huen, walk outside to buy breakfast after she has nursed him back to health. He stands at the gate for a long time even though he is still weak from bronchitis, watching her form grow smaller and smaller as the distance between them increases.

"What makes the new Taiwan cinema so striking to the audience is that these directors, like Hou Hsiao-Hsien, are very much aware they are making a new type of film language," said Chow. She and Hong, along with two professors from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill held a roundtable discussion following the event.

The next film in the Screen/Society's series, "The Terrorizers," will be shown at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31, in the Griffith Film Theater. The program is free and open to the public.