第36個故事
作詞：雷光夏
作曲：雷光夏
夏天的雨水飄落 寧靜公園
深夜的微風拂過 吹乾了樹
在街角的咖啡店 相遇的一刻
故事從頭 我對你依然心動
溫暖的太陽照著 冬天的花
你微笑著讓我 抹去眼淚
看這座城市 漫漫 被時光移動
若伸出手 還是渴望被你把握
給我 我想要的生活
面對 最坦白的眼眸
前方 是一片晴朗星空
答案 靜靜擁抱我
前方 是一片晴朗星空
答案 靜靜擁抱我
V: I am watching `Taipei Exchanges'. I am having a hard time watching this. They're just too rich. The city is too clean. I don't know about the vox pop sections, either.
me: Oh?
V: I understand how those HK movies can make the city seem so beautiful and romantic. This movie makes Taipei look like Austin. It very much is not.
me: What city does it closely resemble?
V: No, it's not at all like Detroit. There is no urban decay in Taipei. There is just uneven development. There are probably structures in just as bad shape in Taipei, but they aren't from want of attention, from neglect or abandonment. There is lots of development and activity. It's just that there is also poverty. Also, Chinese people seem to have a similar model to the Spanish. High walls and interior spaces. When they have grounds, the grounds are private. Whereas English grounds are public. English estate walls are constricted - they are pulled in much closer to the house itself. There is a concept of shared, public space. Taipei doesn't really have this in the sense that - people live in very nice buildings, the interiors of which look as good as anything you might get in New York, but the exteriors are rarely as maintained. It feels like there's a home-as-a-compound thinking. Erect walls at the boundaries and just focus on the interior.
me: Oh?
V: Though the addition of these conceits may itself be what makes the movie somewhat naive and charming. It's slickly produced in comparison to the lower standards of Asian cinema, and it's very constructed relative to the more naturalistic fashion of Taiwan art cinema.
V: Yes, like, oh, the spiritual horrors of modernisation. The long pauses in dialog, extended scenes... This movie is 1. short and 2. very edited. Soundtrack, structured by the scene and act. Multiple takes.
me: Of course, foreigners suck those up
V: Art movies?
me: They love light, charming movies
V: You make it all sound so sinister.
me: I make it sound as it is. There is nothing more or less sinister than a movie as an enterprise
V: It isn't sinister in the least. It is, however, something of a given that a movie funded by the tourism bureau isn't going to show slums or industrial decay. Taipei doesn't quite have slums, but it does have metropolitan poverty. It has the decay of a tropical nation and the decay of a country that blossomed during the 70s and 80s. The latter is the decay of construction demand without advanced construction techniques or materials. In my own opinion, this means the use of concrete as the primary construction material and ceramic as an surfacing material. It really weathers very, very poorly. And, at its best, a building's exterior still looks like a public bathroom. Brutalism as an architectural style, too.
me: It's probably the cheapest technique that could be afforded by countries on that level of development
me: Yes, sight for sore eyes. It might also be a blurring of commercial and residential architecture.
V: I don't think I would really want to live in a building that allowed that.Or, let me rephrase that, I would not want to live in a walk-up that allowed the kinds of businesses that end up in these locations. A doorman building where the businesses are professional offices with low volumes of clients - that is a bit more acceptable. But not a building with free access and people coming and going to see a massage therapist.
me: I'll watch it and let you know what I think
V: Makes me nostalgic.
me: See, what did I tell you about foreigners sucking it up?!
V: I don't think I have seen it yet.
V: Did I tell you about the good part of `Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'?
me: Nope
V: There is a scene where Shia LeBeouf is trying to court investment money from this rich Chinese businessman. He is playing hard to get as Shia's boss throws pitches at him. Then Shia shows how awesome of an ibanker he is: he tells the businessman about his own green energy ideas, which are a good long-term investment. He goes ``好事多磨'' Then he gives the businessman this expensive gift of liquor. After the meeting, he explains to his boss, the MD/president of this massive investment bank about how Chinese culture is about face and whatever bullshit. Later in the movie, the president says that the charmed businessman ended up investing in some other idea, throwing the green energy save the world to the wind. I thought this was a nice little piece, if just in spite of itself.
V: It says: In Chinese culture, face matters, except when it doesn't. The failure to invest is a small piece whose purpose is to motivate Shia to strike out and find his own investment sources via Gordon Gecko. The point was to show him as this badass ibanker who can charm foreign clients. But I think they inadvertantly show something much truer: How much it matters to pretend that face matters. Because it doesn't mean shit. Face makes it sound like some exotic, ritualised system of respect. It's not face that drives Chinese middle class to luxury brands: it's the same crass conspicuous consumerism as everyone else. It's not face that drove that business interaction: it's just the same twisted power dynamic with an extra dimension of Chinese nationalism and exceptionalism.No?
me: Well said
V: Oh?
me: I think this movie (Taipei Exchanges) gets a bit too bourgeois pretentious at times...
me: Like when one of the sisters was telling story to the female flight attendants
me: Ha, they also use a Mac
me: They don't use Macs in 'The Unit'
V: Yes, I thought the pilot guy was a bit too tall, dark, and handsome to take seriously. But I think this movie can be appreciated on its own merits.
me: I tasted Tiramisu the other day, not sure what the fuzz is all about. It's kind of fluffy, like this movie. Doesn't have much taste either
me: lolwut. Let's sell our hut and pursue our dreams of traveling the world! Make memories of our own! How noble~ I don't think this is the result so much of hegemony and neocolonialism as much as insularity. Like, their window to the world is through interactions with people in the shop. These glimpses mistaken for broad strokes of what life is like in other worlds. This 'slice of life' that is so ever narrow.
V: I understand how those HK movies can make the city seem so beautiful and romantic. This movie makes Taipei look like Austin. It very much is not.
me: What city does it closely resemble?
V: Detroit, haha
V: No, it's not at all like Detroit. There is no urban decay in Taipei. There is just uneven development. There are probably structures in just as bad shape in Taipei, but they aren't from want of attention, from neglect or abandonment. There is lots of development and activity. It's just that there is also poverty. Also, Chinese people seem to have a similar model to the Spanish. High walls and interior spaces. When they have grounds, the grounds are private. Whereas English grounds are public. English estate walls are constricted - they are pulled in much closer to the house itself. There is a concept of shared, public space. Taipei doesn't really have this in the sense that - people live in very nice buildings, the interiors of which look as good as anything you might get in New York, but the exteriors are rarely as maintained. It feels like there's a home-as-a-compound thinking. Erect walls at the boundaries and just focus on the interior.
me: So the Chinese has no sense of Civic duty
V: I think they just have a different concept of living. It's hard to put valuations on this. For example, we can say that the Spanish style is much less ostentatious. They erect plain walls around the estate.
V: Well, the trick of this movie is to film in interior spaces and to pick just the right neighbourhood for the exterior shots. It must be 天母. Tianmu is in the north near 明德站, that's where Taipei American school is. So lots of foreigners. Google Maps it and look at the street view, it's like a nice American suburb.
V: Well, the trick of this movie is to film in interior spaces and to pick just the right neighbourhood for the exterior shots. It must be 天母. Tianmu is in the north near 明德站, that's where Taipei American school is. So lots of foreigners. Google Maps it and look at the street view, it's like a nice American suburb.
V: These days, you could live in Taiwan and not speak English or Chinese and still find your way around. Well, live in Taipei. The movie is somewhat charming, but it's cinematographically somewhat uneven. There are a lot of conceits that distract from the story.
me: Oh?
V: Though the addition of these conceits may itself be what makes the movie somewhat naive and charming. It's slickly produced in comparison to the lower standards of Asian cinema, and it's very constructed relative to the more naturalistic fashion of Taiwan art cinema.
me: Naturalistic fashion?
V: Yes, like, oh, the spiritual horrors of modernisation. The long pauses in dialog, extended scenes... This movie is 1. short and 2. very edited. Soundtrack, structured by the scene and act. Multiple takes.
me: So it feels a bit belabored?
V: No, it's smooth and not over-produced. But it's constructed. It's not like this movie I saw about a native cop whose family left him and chats with the betel nut girls, then is blinded by one of the girls when she finds out he imprisoned her drug-addict mother many years ago.
V: Wow, they really find the nicest angles of the city. I KENW IT!``Funded in part by the Taipei tourism bureau, Taipei Exchanges...'' After this last scene, it was... Some very nice, very carefully selected angles of the city. Made it look very romantic, very beautiful..
me: So its intention is to build a modern mythology of Taipei for the foreigners' imagination
V: No, of course not. Its intention is to be a light, charming art movie. In this respect, it can encourage the Taiwan movie industry.
V: No, of course not. Its intention is to be a light, charming art movie. In this respect, it can encourage the Taiwan movie industry.
me: Of course, foreigners suck those up
V: Art movies?
me: They love light, charming movies
V: You make it all sound so sinister.
me: I make it sound as it is. There is nothing more or less sinister than a movie as an enterprise
V: It isn't sinister in the least. It is, however, something of a given that a movie funded by the tourism bureau isn't going to show slums or industrial decay. Taipei doesn't quite have slums, but it does have metropolitan poverty. It has the decay of a tropical nation and the decay of a country that blossomed during the 70s and 80s. The latter is the decay of construction demand without advanced construction techniques or materials. In my own opinion, this means the use of concrete as the primary construction material and ceramic as an surfacing material. It really weathers very, very poorly. And, at its best, a building's exterior still looks like a public bathroom. Brutalism as an architectural style, too.
me: Yes, it's the same on the mainland, and in Rio de Janeiro for that matter.
V: This is probably the case throughout Asia. Actually, I would think that the mainland is probably a little better in that areas of high development may be areas of only very recent development. So they skip some of the architectural ugliness.
me: It's probably the cheapest technique that could be afforded by countries on that level of development
V: I think this tiling-over-concrete architecture is all over east Asia. Japan and Korea, too. The building they are constructing next door is all glass and steel. The older buildings in the neighbourhood are ugly, but they are at least brick. Actually, I would say the ugliest has to be tiling-over-concrete with external wiring and, this is important, non-central climate control. Think: external air conditioning units and wires hanging all over the place.
me: Yes, sight for sore eyes. It might also be a blurring of commercial and residential architecture.
V: It is. There are a lot of signs outside of windows talking about some business sitting on 2F or 5F.
me: Where a building was thought of as a space containing people without consideration for transportation and ease of living
V: I don't think I would really want to live in a building that allowed that.Or, let me rephrase that, I would not want to live in a walk-up that allowed the kinds of businesses that end up in these locations. A doorman building where the businesses are professional offices with low volumes of clients - that is a bit more acceptable. But not a building with free access and people coming and going to see a massage therapist.
V: This movie is constructing not a mythology of the city or the island but just the art movie romanticism of a location. This is hardly very sinister at all. Just pretty actresses in pretty locations, with strongly western values. Building one's own business, living for one's passions. Quitting a job in a design firm to open one's own coffee shop. This isn't facing the miserable dehumanisation of modernisation. There's no real external conflict in this story. Only the minor internal conflict. That was a nice little movie.
me: I'll watch it and let you know what I think
V: Makes me nostalgic.
me: See, what did I tell you about foreigners sucking it up?!
V: ha. I am just a troublemaker. I always go for the underdog.
me: Ah so you are conflating being principled with being just
V: Yes.
me: I was truck by the self-confidence and the patriotism in "A City of Sadness". The patriotic cultural elite back then was something else. Even in the face of KMT terror they didn't lose the sense of where they came from
V: I don't think I have seen it yet.
V: Did I tell you about the good part of `Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'?
me: Nope
V: There is a scene where Shia LeBeouf is trying to court investment money from this rich Chinese businessman. He is playing hard to get as Shia's boss throws pitches at him. Then Shia shows how awesome of an ibanker he is: he tells the businessman about his own green energy ideas, which are a good long-term investment. He goes ``好事多磨'' Then he gives the businessman this expensive gift of liquor. After the meeting, he explains to his boss, the MD/president of this massive investment bank about how Chinese culture is about face and whatever bullshit. Later in the movie, the president says that the charmed businessman ended up investing in some other idea, throwing the green energy save the world to the wind. I thought this was a nice little piece, if just in spite of itself.
V: It says: In Chinese culture, face matters, except when it doesn't. The failure to invest is a small piece whose purpose is to motivate Shia to strike out and find his own investment sources via Gordon Gecko. The point was to show him as this badass ibanker who can charm foreign clients. But I think they inadvertantly show something much truer: How much it matters to pretend that face matters. Because it doesn't mean shit. Face makes it sound like some exotic, ritualised system of respect. It's not face that drives Chinese middle class to luxury brands: it's the same crass conspicuous consumerism as everyone else. It's not face that drove that business interaction: it's just the same twisted power dynamic with an extra dimension of Chinese nationalism and exceptionalism.No?
me: Well said
V: Oh?
me: I think this movie (Taipei Exchanges) gets a bit too bourgeois pretentious at times...
V: Maybe, but bourgeois pretentious is a bit extreme. I thought the beginning was a bit so, but it ends up being kind of charming when it avoids becoming a lame romantic comedy.
me: Like when one of the sisters was telling story to the female flight attendants
V: Well, the storyline doesn't make large moves from there. That's what I think keeps it charming. It stays low-key. Also, I have lived and visited those places, so it has some extra meaning for me..
me: Ha, they also use a Mac
V: It's a movie. If you want a movie or television show that doesn't use Macs, go watch `Stargate: Atlantis'
The Pegasus galaxy runs on Dell.
The Pegasus galaxy runs on Dell.
me: They don't use Macs in 'The Unit'
V: Yeah, but they use mostly fake computers.
me: They don't have time for these luxury non-sense when mission critical failures mean the lost of lives
V: Yeah, that's it. Anyway, I thought it was a sweet little movie. Maybe a good date film.
V: Yeah, that's it. Anyway, I thought it was a sweet little movie. Maybe a good date film.
me: This kind of looks like middle class Chinese people wow'd by tales of the well traveled gentlemen. Kind of like the metric that ABCs measure their life by.
V: Yes, I thought the pilot guy was a bit too tall, dark, and handsome to take seriously. But I think this movie can be appreciated on its own merits.
me: I tasted Tiramisu the other day, not sure what the fuzz is all about. It's kind of fluffy, like this movie. Doesn't have much taste either
V: It can be made better or worse.
me: Of course, the American backpacker, how cool is that? The epitome of worldliness!
V: Yeah, but it's, like, not even half of a scene. It's not all hegemony and neocolonialism out there.
me: Yes, only its aftermath
me: lolwut. Let's sell our hut and pursue our dreams of traveling the world! Make memories of our own! How noble~ I don't think this is the result so much of hegemony and neocolonialism as much as insularity. Like, their window to the world is through interactions with people in the shop. These glimpses mistaken for broad strokes of what life is like in other worlds. This 'slice of life' that is so ever narrow.
