A Brighter Summer Day – Criterion Review

<p>A Brighter Summer Day&comma; directed by prolific Taiwanese filmmaker <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0945981&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;ov&lowbar;dr" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Edward Yang<&sol;a>&comma; is a piece of art that deserves the loving restoration that it was given&period; Yang presents Taipei in the early 1960&&num;8217&semi;s as a moderately civilized city on the brink of chaos&period; After their flee of Mainland China&comma; caused by the defeat of the National Government&comma; the millions of families nestled in their new homes&period; Within those new homes were restless kids that needed to find their purpose and reason in a new land populated by people as lost as they were&period; Yang&&num;8217&semi;s film&comma; which borrows its title from the lyrics of Elvis Presley&&num;8217&semi;s Are You Lonesome Tonight&comma; is about those children&comma; their parents&comma; and their discoveries within themselves&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Starring <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0151654&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Chang Chen<&sol;a>&comma; among hundreds of other non-professional actors cast in roles both major and not&comma; stars in the haunting and blunt portrayal of the life and times of these people&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s difficult to not become emotionally invested with these characters and their plight&period; Chen plays Xiao Si&&num;8217&semi;r&comma; a young teenager in the midst of the war between rival gangs&comma; the political unease of the land&comma; raging hormones&comma; and on and on&period; Chen&&num;8217&semi;s performance&comma; as well as many others throughout the film &lpar;including his father&comma;  Chang Kuo-chu&comma; actually playing Chen&&num;8217&semi;s father in the film&rpar; are spectacular&period; Learning of the fact that nearly all the actors were non-professional&comma; I was completely surprised by the notion of amateurity within the ranks of the film&period; Nearly every actor nails their role and feels nothing short of realistic&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;102866" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-102866" style&equals;"width&colon; 1600px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-102866" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03210349&sol;28596id&lowbar;173&lowbar;w1600&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;A Brighter Summer Day&comma; Janus Films&rpar;" width&equals;"1600" height&equals;"900" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-102866" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;A Brighter Summer Day&comma; Janus Films&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The cinematography is equally astonishing among the beauties of ABSD&period; Shot by Hui-kung Chang and Long-yu Zhang&comma; the frame is always well used and never short of beautiful&period; The streets of Taipei are littered with teenagers and roadside shops in scenes that are lensed with a sense of confidence that is hardly seen in a film mostly filled with dialogue&period; The smallest of moments are taken just as seriously as the big ones in every technical aspect&comma; and it shows&period; ABSD is nothing short of epic and admirable&period; But Yang&&num;8217&semi;s reach often exceeds its grasp over the four hour runtime&comma; and despite the excellence of major portions of the film&comma; it can&&num;8217&semi;t recover from a lot of things that are just plain unnecessary&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite ABSD&&num;8217&semi;s name drop of <em>War and Peace<&sol;em> a few times&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s less novelistic and more meandering&period; With what must be over 100 characters &lpar;and I&&num;8217&semi;m not being hyperbolic here&rpar;&comma; Yang has a difficult time balancing them all and finding a proper place within the narrative&period; The movie tries to have its main focus point in Si&&num;8217&semi;r&comma; but you meet with several other gang members and friends along the way&period; These gang members are sometimes funny&comma; other times interesting&comma; most times pointless&period; The length adds to the feeling of time passing and it definitely felt like it&period; With the exquisite visuals and development of certain characters&comma; a major portion of the film is gorgeous and intelligent enough to keep my interest and I admired the film throughout&comma; but that doesn&&num;8217&semi;t mean it shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t entertaining or having certain storylines add to the importance of the narrative&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The importance of the Gang storyline in the film is excellent and interesting within the context of these characters&comma; so when the film ends that storyline at the 2 hour and 30 minute mark&comma; the rest feels like a 90 minute epilogue to the novel&period; ABSD tries a lot for the rest of the stories to be interesting enough within the remaining time&comma; and it even attempts at another climax within the last 20 minutes&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s hard to not feel the strain the rest of the movie goes under&period; Ending after ending&comma; Yang struggles to stick the landing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;102865" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-102865" style&equals;"width&colon; 1600px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-102865" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03210410&sol;28596id&lowbar;141&lowbar;w1600&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;A Brighter Summer Day&comma; Janus Films&rpar;" width&equals;"1600" height&equals;"900" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-102865" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;A Brighter Summer Day&comma; Janus Films&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>For a film that has no problems with exploring every facet of the issues faced in that era&comma; it became more apparent on how little the movie cared about the women in that era&period; Played as shrill&comma; annoying matriarchs or teenagers without the same depth that the boys have&comma; Yang has no idea where to place them except in the background&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s even an attempt to try and explain away all the issues the women have faced within that time and it almost succeeds&comma; until you realize it&&num;8217&semi;s just too late to explain away the misuse of those characters over the last 210 minutes&period; The women are stuck in the background to worry and be complacent to every major event around them&period; The adolescent girls are just there for boys to chase around&period; I can see the argument that the movie is through a boys viewpoint&comma; so it&&num;8217&semi;ll have a simplistic look at that side of things&comma; but the excuse goes out the window with every instance of familial issues and cultural differences between certain families and their values&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite all the issues&comma; ABSD is a film I am very happy to have finally seen&period; 25 years after its initial release in China&comma; North American audiences can finally see Yang&&num;8217&semi;s film &lpar;for the first time on any form of home video here&rpar; and it&&num;8217&semi;s arguably one that needs to be watched to witness another seminal experience and viewpoint that is rarely seen&period; Seeing the Criterion restoration on the big screen&comma; I can confirm the amount of work that has been put into this and how clean it looks&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m hard pressed to see how much better this movie can ever look&period; Whatever issues I may have with the film&comma; I can&&num;8217&semi;t deny the power it holds when it really works&comma; and it works more often than not&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;