Seven years after his 2002 debut feature Twenty Something Taipei (台北晚九朝五), seasoned actor Leon Dai (戴立忍) returns to the director’s chair with No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (不能沒有你). The film, the title of which means “I can’t live without you” in Spanish, is based on a true story. Shot in black-and-white, No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti centers on a blue-collar, single father’s struggle to raise his daughter while engaged in a fierce battle against an unyielding bureaucracy.
Blessed with a masterful control of cinematography and flair for a sober aesthetic, Dai succeeds in weaving an accessible and compelling melodrama. The story evokes acute emotions, the effects of which linger long after the movie ends.
The film opens with Li Wu-hsiung (Chen Wen-pin, 陳文彬) holding his young daughter, Mei (Chao Yu-hsuan, 趙祐萱), and threatening to jump off a bridge. As the police attempt to intervene, TV news cameras focus on the two figures, with reporters hastily speculating about the motives of the suicidal father. Throughout the scene, Li shouts, “society is not fair!”
Rewind to two months earlier. Li lives as a tramp near Kaohsiung harbor earning a meager living working odd jobs, such as diving for a sly boat captain. Mei observes this particular dangerous endeavor, concerned that the worn equipment might break and her father die.
Though Mei’s mother abandoned the family years ago, Li and his daughter, who live together in an empty warehouse on the docks, share a ramshackle but affectionate existence. Life is manageable until the authorities discover that Li is not Mei’s legal guardian.
Following the advice of his old friend A-tsai (Lin Chih-ju, 林志儒), Li, hoping to resolve the problem, travels to Taipei to track down a former classmate, now a legislator. What follows is a Kafkaesque nightmare, as the bureaucracy rules that removing Mei from her father’s care is in her best interest.
Driven to despair, Li resorts to drastic measures, which eventually culminate in the opening standoff.
Shot with precise mise en scene, the unassuming film is energized by natural performances and unobtrusive camerawork, a technique that produces authenticity. The austere black-and-white cinematography leads to a simple, focused style, transforming the family’s grimy hovel into a safe haven for Li and his daughter. Without the distracting visual chaos of a film shot in color, audiences are able to focus on the relationship between the two, mesmerized by their struggle to remain a family.
Though the story offers Dai numerous opportunities to examine the failings of impersonal bureaucracy, the director fails to fully explore these resonant themes. He instead depicts government figures as stereotypically lifeless drones. This simplistic conception of the Establishment prevents what could have been a sophisticated commentary on the problems posed by living in such an environment.
Social analysis aside, the film is, at its heart, a story about a father’s fear of losing his daughter, not an existential critique.
First-time actor Chen delivers a touching performance as an underprivileged man who, down on his luck, refuses to relinquish his fatherhood. The film adopts a nuanced approach towards the relationship between Li and his daughter, establishing their affection through tender silence and wisely eschewing mawkish outbursts of emotion. One such subtle moment occurs during a diving expedition. As Li plunges into the deep blue sea, alone but free, safeguarded from the hostile world above, he looks up and catches sight of the faint image of Mei, quietly awaiting his return.
Nov. 11 to Nov. 17 People may call Taipei a “living hell for pedestrians,” but back in the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were even discouraged from crossing major roads on foot. And there weren’t crosswalks or pedestrian signals at busy intersections. A 1978 editorial in the China Times (中國時報) reflected the government’s car-centric attitude: “Pedestrians too often risk their lives to compete with vehicles over road use instead of using an overpass. If they get hit by a car, who can they blame?” Taipei’s car traffic was growing exponentially during the 1960s, and along with it the frequency of accidents. The policy
Hourglass-shaped sex toys casually glide along a conveyor belt through an airy new store in Tokyo, the latest attempt by Japanese manufacturer Tenga to sell adult products without the shame that is often attached. At first glance it’s not even obvious that the sleek, colorful products on display are Japan’s favorite sex toys for men, but the store has drawn a stream of couples and tourists since opening this year. “Its openness surprised me,” said customer Masafumi Kawasaki, 45, “and made me a bit embarrassed that I’d had a ‘naughty’ image” of the company. I might have thought this was some kind
What first caught my eye when I entered the 921 Earthquake Museum was a yellow band running at an angle across the floor toward a pile of exposed soil. This marks the line where, in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 1999, a massive magnitude 7.3 earthquake raised the earth over two meters along one side of the Chelungpu Fault (車籠埔斷層). The museum’s first gallery, named after this fault, takes visitors on a journey along its length, from the spot right in front of them, where the uplift is visible in the exposed soil, all the way to the farthest
The room glows vibrant pink, the floor flooded with hundreds of tiny pink marbles. As I approach the two chairs and a plush baroque sofa of matching fuchsia, what at first appears to be a scene of domestic bliss reveals itself to be anything but as gnarled metal nails and sharp spikes protrude from the cushions. An eerie cutout of a woman recoils into the armrest. This mixed-media installation captures generations of female anguish in Yun Suknam’s native South Korea, reflecting her observations and lived experience of the subjugated and serviceable housewife. The marbles are the mother’s sweat and tears,