After his critically acclaimed feature debut Parking (停車, 2008), a darkly comic urban drama, director Chung Mong-hong (鍾孟宏) moves to the countryside in the exquisitely crafted The Fourth Portrait (第四張畫). The atmospheric film takes a poignant look at the issue of domestic violence through the tale of a boy haunted by loss, and is enhanced by handsome cinematography and a top-notch cast that includes Taiwanese thespians Leon Dai (戴立忍) and King Shih-chieh (金士傑), as well as Hao Lei (郝蕾) from China.
Set in rural Taiwan, the film opens with 10-year-old Xiang, effortlessly played by newcomer Bi Xiao-hai (畢曉海), watching his father pass away in a hospital room. Left alone in the world, the boy manages to survive by stealing boxed meals. An elderly school janitor (played by King) takes Xiang under his wing.
Later Xiang’s estranged mother (played by Hao), remarried to a morose night market vendor (played by Dai), comes to take the boy to his new family. A sense of foreboding envelopes the movie when the train that the mother and son take speeds into a black tunnel, leaving the two devoured by darkness.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ATOM CINEMA
Xiang’s new home is cold and unwelcoming; the stepfather is rancorous and distant. His mother, a Chinese immigrant, seems exhausted by her life as a hostess at a ramshackle karaoke bar. The boy struggles to make sense of his hostile environment by sketching portraits, and finds solace in a newly found friendship with a portly outcast, played by entertainer Lin Yu-chih (林郁智), better known as Na Dou (納豆). The friend makes Xiang an accomplice to his petty crimes.
The story takes a menacing turn when Xiang draws a portrait inspired by a dream about his older brother, who disappeared some years earlier. A series of macabre incidents ensues, gradually laying bare a skeleton in the family closet.
Cowritten, shot and directed by Chung, the film shares a similar episodic approach to storytelling with Parking. The child protagonist’s series of encounters with odd characters offers gripping moments, but prevents the viewer from emotionally investing in the narrative. The distancing effect that works well in Parking to convey urban estrangement is often frustrating when one tries to grasp the emotional poignancy and depth suggested in The Fourth Portrait.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ATOM CINEMA
Nonetheless, Chung is a wizard at evoking moods. The director never shuns away from his background in TV commercials, weaving rich colors, polished compositions and fluid camera work into a cinematography that gives Taiwan’s countryside a dreamlike, surreal quality.
The bleak, hostile environment is inhabited not only by petty criminals and drifters but ominous dark clouds rolling in from a distance and toxic yellow fumes belching out of factories in the background. Most striking of all is the stepfather’s giant fish tank, which exudes an eerie blue light that doesn’t seem to be of this world.
The solid cast lends considerable strength and grace to the work. Hao, almost unrecognizable from her lauded big-screen debut in Lou Ye’s (婁燁) Summer Palace (頤和園, 2006), presents a powerful character study of a Chinese immigrant who comes to Taiwan in search of a better life but ends up disillusioned. Dai is stunningly fierce as the stepfather. Rather than a character grounded in real life, however, Dai’s role feels more like an embodiment of wickedness that seems out of synch with the other rural inhabitants.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ATOM CINEMA
Since his award-winning documentary Doctor (醫生) in 2006, Chung has honed a distinct style and unique sensibility. Given more time to refine his skills in storytelling and character development, the seasoned commercial filmmaker will no doubt grow into much more than a cinematic stylist.
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS