Liàn liàn fengchén

I love Asian movies quite a lot and for some reason "Dust in the Wind" (aka "Liàn liàn fengchén") from 1986 had managed to elude me all the way up to 2019. When I was given the chance to sit down and watch this movie, I of course jumped at the chance.

Turns out that this Taiwanese movie was a major slow paced and prolonged movie with zero appeal to me. Still, I managed to sit through almost 72 minutes of the entire 109 minutes the movie runs for. I kept watching with the hope that the movie would pick up pace and that the storyline and/or characters would eventually start to have any appeal.

It just never happened...

The storyline in "Dust in the Wind" was simplistic to the point where it lost all of its appeal. It is about young people leaving their provincial home villages behind and head to industrious Tai Pei to work. And then there was some adolescence elements thrown into the formula as well. But it just wasn't enough to make a watchable, enjoyable or entertaining movie. I must admit that I have no idea what writers T'ien-wen Chu and Nien-Jen Wu were trying to accomplish with "Dust in the Wind".

The characters in the movie were essentially as pointless as the storyline. They had no personalities and milled about like battery-operated drones with poor interactions and equally poor dialogue randomly thrown about.

If you have problems falling asleep one evening and have "Dust in the Wind" within arms reach, put it on, because you might overcome your sleep problem and be soundly asleep within a short while. This was a massive swing and a miss of a movie. And I have zero interest in returning to watch the rest of the movie, because I imagine it is going to be every bit as pointless and trivial as the 72 minutes of prolonged torture I already watched was.

Dust in the Wind is a remarkable film, and one which will, no doubt, reward multiple viewings. Like most of the films of Hou Hsiao Hsien, viewers will be divided into two, sharply opposed camps.

The main characters in the film are two high-school students. The first is Wan, who - seeing his village as a dead-end career-wise, decides to leave their home town to go to Taipei to find work, intending to complete his education via night-school. His girlfriend Huen also leaves for Taipei after graduation. The other personages are family members, employers, friends and co-workers.

The story presented consists of a number of vignettes in typical Hou fashion, with stationary camera and naturalistic performances. Glimpses are given of their occupations, their moments together and their times apart. Though varying from the very funny to the emotionally raw, they have a cumulative effect, resonating with a reality that is not idealised, and is yet still filled with moments of sublime grace, somehow existing with situations of despair, misery, boredom and loss. There is little music, only a solitary guitar used to punctuate scenes, almost like a musical interlude, often combined with stunning scenery.

Apart from the immediate plot, something can also be glimpsed of the attitudes of the rural, native Taiwanese towards the city and the higher classes, as well as to the vicissitudes of life in general. On a whole the film seems imbued with the melancholy, fatalistic philosophy indicated by its title.

A worthy member of Hou's inimitable body of films, 'Dust in the Wind' was touching and memorable, though with an absence of schmaltz. It is a film I hope to revisit soon. As for recommendations, I'm not sure that it will be everyone's 'cup of tea'. Some will find many of its aspects, in particular its detachedness, quite alienating. Certainly those already familiar with Hou, or fans of Taiwanese cinema in general, will want to see it. Those who like Ozu, Bresson or Tarkovsky may find it worthwhile also. There is the same naturalistic feel, understated acting and long takes. But it is also very much the work of an original auteur who is honing his craft and producing unique, personal films.

As far as I can tell, this is a series of melancholic vignettes which at the end amount to a melancholic (if not outright depressing) conclusion. Is this film supposed to express something about the fleeting nature of reality ("dust in the wind")? If so, I think there was no need for such a long story, because all the scenes had that same uncertain quality from the very beginning. There was no progress, no added depth; the film only kept adding misfortune upon misfortune and then it just ended. A City of Sadness has a very similar style and mood, but it uses it to explore and comment on society and its complexities, offering multiple perspectives and personalities on the way. I've seen some people compare this movie to Ozu and De Sica, but I think that's just focusing on the form and not the content. Whereas here Hsiao-Hsien remains distant and somewhat indifferent to its subject, Ozu is profoundly emotional and De Sica is greatly socially committed.

When it comes to writing about a specific film I stutter, I'm lost. But don't misunderstand me, I know enough of movies to say this is a work of art that will prevail thorough time as the greatest novels do. I believe Hou is up there with Tarkovsky, Bresson, Ozu, Pasolini, Dreyer, Sokurov, Fellini, Herzog, Paradjanov and others. I mention them so as to locate a few of you readers who may have heard little of Hou.

I think its better not to talk about the movie itself, one shall see it with new eyes. It is something new, this time cinema works for reality to transform it to beauty, that's the real meaning of art. It may seem simple at times, and yes it is, for time at present seems always simple, but it also accumulates the most complex structure of time. One can feel how the banality of everyday slowly fixates itself in eternity, one can see the inevitable, the beauty in the every small detail. Hou justifies life in a century that has lost itself and that sees only its own shadow. Humanity in its true form, going around like lost and innocent children, and there's no evil. And every second in Hou's work makes life more beautiful.

I've talked to a few people who have seen his movies, I can't guarantee the same experience, but what I've seen is there if you can see it in yourself.

The screen is totally black and after a few moments a very unclear spot seems to flicker in the middle; just a few more moments and the tiny white spot gets clear; the spot gets bigger: it's the end of a railroad tunnel, and a train is running through the mountains. The movie has just started.

Made in 1986, Dust in the Wind belongs to the first artistic decade of Hou Hsiao-Hsien. This was a period when the Taiwanese director was preoccupied by the story of his own generation: the youngsters from the sixties, coming to age while their country was coming to age. Teenagers leaving the countryside for the big cities, facing the challenges of an unknown environment, trying to understand the new realities and to adapt, while still reluctant. Youngsters behaving erratically, like dust in the wind, dreaming big, till confronted by time and fate: time to erode all illusions, fate to treat all dreams like dust in the wind.

Nothing remarkable happens in this movie. You can consider the plot as extremely boring, only this is not the point. Also some reviewers stressed out the unsentimental approach of the director in telling a story that after all implies sentiments. It's true, but again, this is not the point. Like in all films of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, the plot has the unique role to create a universe, and to leave room for meditation. The language of images is here essential, to operate on the subconscious level. Watching Dust in the Wind calls immediately in mind the world from the movies of De Sica, but the Taiwanese master gets subtly beyond. It's just amazing how this director takes the sordid (in good neorealist tradition), finds the perfect place for each actor, for each object, and processes everything in hypnotic long takes.

The influence of Ozu is also present in this movie (let away the same love for railroad scenes, think at the last scene, showing the ocean: it's the moment of stasis, the way all Ozu's works end; coming immediately after the dramatic outcome of the plot, it suggests that whatever happens is unimportant in the cosmic order of things; life will go on anyway). What differentiates Ozu and Hou is the way they treat the plot. If you watch any movie created by Ozu, you have the feeling that the Japanese master is seated near you, enjoying the events from the screen as much as you do. For Hou the story is like an executive summary, detailed just to the point where the images can exist on their own to play on the hypnotic register.

I found Dust in the Wind on youTube, in ten consecutive videos. I know that watching a movie by Hou Hsiao-Hsien on youTube can be painful, so I suggest you get a DVD copy, if possible. I watched it on youTube, and my Internet connection was getting slower every now and then. However it paid.