Lin Jing-jie's (林靖傑) directorial debut, The Most Distant Course (最遙遠的距離), is one of the most talked-about art-house movies of the year, attracting attention with a high-profile cast led by actress Guey Lun-mei (桂綸鎂) and a story about lone individuals struggling to find their inner selves.
The film follows three emotionally and spiritually crippled Taipei urbanites who are alienated from society.
Psychiatrist A-tsai (Jia Xiao-guo, 賈孝國), who has a talent for piercing the souls of his patients but is unable to cure his own wounds, journeys to Taitung in search of a lost love.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHI HSIA FILMS
Young sound recordist Tang (Mo Zi-yi, 莫子儀) is a mess after being dumped by his girlfriend. Hoping to salvage the relationship, Tang circumnavigates Taiwan, recording sounds of the island and sends tape after tape labeled "Sounds of Formosa" to his lover's apartment, now tenanted by Yun (Guey Lun-mei), an office worker suffocated by daily routines and her involvement in a love triangle.
Gradually brought back to life by the simple sounds of the land, Yun sets out on a journey to trace the source of the recordings. The three travelers have different reasons for escaping the capital, but their goal is the same: to find their true selves, which have long been buried and forgotten in the monotony and travails of life.
The script was originally written for director Lin's close friend Chen Ming-tsai (陳明才), an actor who suffered from bipolar disorder and took his own life at Dulan Bay (都蘭灣), Taitung, one year after the screenplay was finished. Nevertheless, hoping to reflect the quest for truth and reality, Lin saw the project through.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHI HSIA FILMS
The scene near the end of the film in which the psychiatrist snorkels on the freeway in a diving suit echoes the uncompromising spirit of the late artist who, in the eyes of Lin, refused to become a part of mainstream society and chose to walk a lone path rarely understood by others.
Though the story behind the film sounds depressing, the movie is beautifully shot and interspersed with humor. Mo is decently cast, while Jia delivers a slightly theatrical performance for the role originally written for Chen. Now a regular lead in local productions, Guey exposes her limits as she struggles to express the feelings of the paramour.
Although The Most Distant Course won the best film accolade at the International Critics' Week in Venice and the special jury award at the Taipei Film Festival (台北電影節), the plot is predictable and the story feels a little too familiar. The juxtaposition of gloomy urban landscapes and colorful, soothing scenes of nature is formulaic to the point of being cliche. Despite that, the movie does touch viewers' hearts.
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) and the New Taipei City Government in May last year agreed to allow the activation of a spent fuel storage facility for the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門). The deal ended eleven years of legal wrangling. According to the Taipower announcement, the city government engaged in repeated delays, failing to approve water and soil conservation plans. Taipower said at the time that plans for another dry storage facility for the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) remained stuck in legal limbo. Later that year an agreement was reached
What does the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in the Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) era stand for? What sets it apart from their allies, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? With some shifts in tone and emphasis, the KMT’s stances have not changed significantly since the late 2000s and the era of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) current platform formed in the mid-2010s under the guidance of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and current President William Lai (賴清德) campaigned on continuity. Though their ideological stances may be a bit stale, they have the advantage of being broadly understood by the voters.
In a high-rise office building in Taipei’s government district, the primary agency for maintaining links to Thailand’s 108 Yunnan villages — which are home to a population of around 200,000 descendants of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) armies stranded in Thailand following the Chinese Civil War — is the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC). Established in China in 1926, the OCAC was born of a mandate to support Chinese education, culture and economic development in far flung Chinese diaspora communities, which, especially in southeast Asia, had underwritten the military insurgencies against the Qing Dynasty that led to the founding of
RSS