Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang ("Yi Yi") dies at 59

saw Yi Yi again recently after almost 20 years. I liked everything about it except the instrumental music that opened the film (fortunately featured only in the first 5 minutes). I remember in 2000 liking its sentimentality, but viewing it again there are also a lot more scenes of strife and general unhappiness than I had remembered

pretty incredible season at close up in london next month feat yang, hou and tsai

https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2019/taipei-stories/

holy shit!

Would happily spend all of June watching that.

Just watched Stray Dogs, it really does away with any kind of continuity in the story, doesn't it? I was confused by one of the main characters being played by three different women

I loved it

sorry, would have been better to post this in the Tsai thread

Every thread can do with a bit of raving over Stray Dogs. Such a great film.

Awesome season I will definitely get round to a couple of these

gonna try and be at as much as i can afford

So jealous of that London exhibition. Watched Goodbye Dragon Inn last night; gorgeous. Still haunted by the TML Stray Dogs exhibition/installation I saw in Guangzhou that I posted about in the Tsai thread:

http://en.cafa.com.cn/tsai-ming-liangs-stray-dogs-to-be-presented-at-times-museum-in-guangzhou.html

Will book "A Brighter Summer Day" tonight

that day, on the beach - summed up in the line "time is overwhelming", layer upon layer of recollection, only made denser by an astonishing use of sound. maybe his angriest film? second half especially defined by seething contempt for the amorality of the rising capitalist class and the generation that created them.

greatest to ever do it

Watched A Brighter Summer Day on Criterion Channel — spread out my viewing over a few days, which I almost think is better because it let the story and characters sink in a little more. I thought it was great. Beautifully made, first of all, it completely immerses you in that particular time and place. The length gives him time to limn details and settings, I started to feel like I could form a map of the neighborhoods in my head. Like Amarcord or My Life as a Dog, it lays some universal coming-of-age themes over a very particular context. But it's less sentimental or forgiving than either of those, these are characters unmoored from their home, in perpetual states of grievance of one kind or another, and living under an inflexible authoritarianism that makes itself felt in small ways and then large ones. I've seen it compared to Rebel Without a Cause, but West Side Story was the first obvious reference that sprang to mind for me. And then by extension obv Romeo and Juliet, there's definitely a Shakespearean arc to the whole thing. Terrific performances. Quite a film.

Yi Yi is the only other one of his I've seen, definitely want to see Taipei Story.

I've seen all but his first two features, and Mahjong is the only one which was disappointing.

Yi Yi is the only other one of his I've seen, definitely want to see Taipei Story.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra),

I suspect you'll have the same response. Taipei Story boasts an even better sense of geography.

this guy's getting a retro at my local next month. very excited! haven't seen any of his films.

sorry, this month.

nice. i just watched Taipei Story, which was a shade below Yi Yi and A Brighter Summers Day but still pretty great

I was saying in the Sight and Sound thread that his masterpiece is A Confucian Confusion. Wouldn't recommend Mahjong.

I saw Brighter Summer Day at a showing where a (no doubt neurodivergent) man kept laughing uproariously at all the most inappropriate, saddest parts. Bit of a difficult situation, I obviously didn't say anything, guy should be allowed to see a movie w/o getting hassled, but I won't say it didn't affect my enjoyment.

My screening of Brighter Summer Day at that Close-up season (talked about upthread) was as perfect an afternoon at a cinema as you could get.

caught the mahjong restoration at the lincoln center retrospective, it's good if minor, dunno why all the hate.

Love hearing the reports of the Yang screenings selling out