The Time to Live and the Time to Die (Tong Nien Wang Shi) (1985)

 

The Time to Live and the Time to Die

When I lived in China, I learned a word, or maybe an expression, that went “Ha-bah” (probably the female form). I understood it as meaning “okaaayy... whatever” and we used it ourselves whenever we had not clue what was going on, which was something that happened daily. “Ha-bah” is exactly what comes to mind when I think of “The Time to Live and the Time to Die”.

I did not understand much of what was happening and even less of what was the point of the movie, so forgive me if I am vague in my description of it.

We are in Taiwan shortly after the Second World War. The family we are following came from mainland China and sort of expect to go back. Wikipedia names one of the children, who seem to go by the name Ah-ha, as the character we follow, but you could have fooled me. There is a father in poor health who die early on, a mother who dies fairly late and a grandmother who dies in the end. I have no clue how many children there are. It could be anything between two and five and do not ask me about their names or what actor played which of them.

The family have limited funds, the house is shabby and while the children are supposed to study hard, the boy(s) seem to be mere street hoodlums.

Time passes, the parents die, and the children grow older and that is about it.

Of course, this takes place over two hours plus, so it is kind of slow motion, but mostly it is the same happening again and again.

This does not mean this movie is entirely uninteresting, because we do get a view into an ordinary family’s life. Small worries, big worries, some shouting, eating, bathing and whatever it is people are doing. I am not certain I have ever gotten so close to a Chinese family life before, although walking on the back streets in Shanghai you do get glimpses of lives you would not otherwise know. I am not certain this voyeur look is enough to keep you interested for two hours, but as I had no clue what was supposed to be happening, I had plenty of time to look at details, such as the rice mats, the bathroom and the half-outdoors kitchen.

Director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s style is compared to Japanese Ozu with his static camera and passive view on what is happening in front of the camera, and it may be Hou is using some of the same techniques, but I think the major difference is that in Ozu’s static view, interesting things were playing out and I was able to decode them. In Hou’s view, whatever is going on is simply not that interesting.

There is of course the very likely explanation that I simply have not understood the movie and that this all is in fact very deep and groundbreaking. I cannot rule out that I am simply too stupid for this movie or too uninterested in Ah-ha’s life and that is my personal failing. With that in mind I think I will leave it there.

Ha-bah.