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4 - Hou Hsiao Hsien’s City of Sadness: History and the Dialogic Female Voice
- Hong Kong University Press, HKU
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origins of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial.1 A violent episode in the nation’s historical past, referred to as Ererba, or the 2–2–8 Incident, is the sequence in City of Sadness (1989) that viewers tend to remember the most. For reasons discussed in more detail later, Ererba is a taboo incident in Taiwan’s past, and its treatment in Hou Hsiao Hsien’s film broke new ground in the reconstruction of history. The presence of this incident in City was a factor in the film’s acquisition of the Golden Lion award in 1989.2 In the film, the representation of Ererba is mediated through the violent business relations of the Lims (Lins), a family that functions as a microcosm of the state and re-enacts the bad ethics associated with the incident. At first glance, the mediated nature of the representation appears to obscure the meaning of Ererba, which was a tragedy generated by race, and calls into question Hou’s ethnic loyalties with respect to the originary moments of the incident. Indeed, in the aftermath of City’s release, film critics and political historians debated the representation of Ererba in relation to Taiwan’s politics, history, and identity.3 In this chapter, I argue that Hou’s intention is not obscured in the film and that, on the contrary, the representation 0 4 Hou Hsiao Hsien’s City of Sadness: History and the Dialogic Female Voice Rosemary Haddon 56 Rosemary Haddon provided the filmmaker with a framework within which to condemn the incident and the Nationalists (KMT) who perpetrated the tragedy for the purpose of establishing statehood. Hou’s condemnation is articulated through the diaristic voice-over of a dialogic female voice, that of Hiromi (Kuanmei), whose alterities position her outside the “official” discourse of the KMT. Hiromi’s gendered difference enables Hou to express his empathy without compromising his integrity or his identity as an émigré from the Mainland at a time when Taiwan’s bentu (localist, also known as “nativist”) movement was nearing a peak.4 City is known as Hou’s “post-Martial Law film”5 and is the first in a trilogy about Taiwan’s recent historical past. Apart from this film, the trilogy includes The Puppetmaster (1993) and Good Men, Good Women (1995), both of which investigate Taiwan’s historical periods that were previously off limits. Set in the transitional period of 1945–1949, City documents the events that took place during the intervening years between the end of Japanese colonialism (1895–1945) and the establishment of Nationalist rule. Their rule was set in place after the Nationalists suffered defeat, then withdrew to the island after the Chinese civil war and set up a governmentin -exile that remained in place for fifty years. As is depicted at the outset of the film, the end of Japanese colonialism was accompanied by euphoria and a hope for enlightened Chinese rule. The hope was short-lived, however, due to the repression that erupted on 28 February 1947 and resulted in an estimated 18,000 to 28,000 casualties. Immediately after the incident, the repression was whitewashed, and both Ererba and the Baikong (White Terror) purges that followed it were banned from public discourse during the era of Martial Law (1947–1987). The lifting of the Law brought to an end the forty-year-long amnesia and resulted in the restoration of Ererba to public memory and to the annals of local history. City’s contribution to the process of restoration locates the film within the discursive global trend of the reconstruction of the past. Ererba appears as a series of intermittent episodes in the second half of City and brings to a denouement the film’s themes of violence, tragedy, and loss. The episodes are based on Lan Bozhou’s Huang mache zhi ge (The Song of the Covered Wagon, 1988), a piece of reportage (baogao wenxue) that documents the lives of Taiwan’s socialist underground during the colonial period. Lan’s work was compiled from documents, photographs, and excerpts from the diary of Zhong Liho, a well-known Taiwanese fiction writer who traveled...