Poussières dans le vent

Dust In The Wind is a 1986 Taiwanese art house drama about two adolescents who decide that they do not want to stay in their home village in order to go to junior high school and instead they make the decision to get a train to Taipei in order to look for work.

And that is basically what the film is about.

For an hour and fifty two minutes the viewer is treated to scene after scene of boring and pointless dialogue and different characters lighting up and smoking a cigarette.

The only reason I can recommend watching this film is if you are suffering from a lack of sleep as this boring film will have you drifting off to the land of nod in no time.

"Another wow factor, for those we are interested in the checkered history of Taiwan, is that Hou and his scribes diligently interleave all the minutiae into its trickling plot, almost every seemingly commonplace conversation has a succinct exposition that appertains to the past or present matters: a valediction with Wan's boss reveals his horrific backstory during the wartime as a soldier; the father-son chitchat the night before Wan's draft underlines the divergence between a father's hope for his children and the unfortunate reality; during Wan's military service in Kinmen county, when a fisherman's family from mainland China is marooned on the island, the two parties respective attitudes strikingly intimate their different political slants."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

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.

One of the earliest pleasures of silent cinema was the "phantom ride," where the audience floated along railway tracks, watching the world roll by. Hou begins Dust in the Wind with just such a journey, his camera gliding through a lush green valley. It's a gesture of trust, or perhaps a quiet bargain: this ride is buying our patience for a story about ordinary, cloud-capped lives. That kind of story is a hard sell without Ozu-level virtuosity (which, thankfully, Hou possesses). His characters, though, are grittier, more sweary, and less genteel than Ozu-san's.

We are ushered into this world, generally speaking, by the high hopes of our parents: hopes for their children to do well at school, to be happy, to succeed, to be extraordinary, and to find love. We mostly disappoint them. Our fates are, more often than not, to be "dust in the wind," as per the movie's title. Yet whatever happens, I'd like to think we retain some memory of hope's flavour, and of the occasional oasis-under-the-stars moment.

Wan is often seen studying, his head buried in books that promise a way out. But no matter how hard he stares, they fail to illuminate him. The path they suggest feels like a dead end. And love, too-what we hoped might rescue or complete us-can become the very dust that hides the rose, to borrow from Clyde Otis and Dinah Washington. The film does give us those brief moments of light, though, such as when friends gather to drink beer and say goodbye to one of their own, drafted into the military.

The story follows Wan and Huen, who grow up in a depressed mining town in the coastal hills. Unbelievably, this is Juifen, the same town that later became a photo-op deluxe for the Instagram set, thanks in part to Hou's City of Sadness. Wan and Huen are two halves of a Platonic whole, bonded from early childhood, and they stabilize one another as they navigate the trials of early adulthood, trying to build lives in Taipei. Love simply means being soothed by the other's presence. Wan and Huen, seated on opposite sides of the barred windows of a tailor's shop, move us not through grand gestures or declarations, but through their quiet, orbital return to each other.

At the end of the film, Wan's grandfather, in a symptom of dementia, repeats three times that sweet potatoes are harder to cultivate than ginseng. We know that quality of life has improved with each generation, but a kind of metronomic falling short of expectations persists. The repetition of the phrase captures this: the effort to grow something meaningful, and the recurring disappointment in the yield.

In this way, the film also refers to Taiwan itself-famously shaped like a sweet potato-struggling through the growing pains of Japanese occupation, followed by the heart-rending separation of destinies from the mainland.

Dust in the Wind can be bitter, but it never strays from relatability. Like the characters in the film, most people who track this down are looking, quietly and patiently, for solace in the cinema.

Hsaio-hsien Hou based this quietly effective Taiwanese Bildungrsoman on co-scripter Nien-Jen Wu's own experiences. The film is heavily influenced on the one side from Japanese masters like Ozu (though Hou denies this) and from the Italian Neo-Realists whose films inspired Wu. It's the old story of the younger generation ('60s kids from a mining town) leaving the country to try their luck in the big city. A shy, but devoted couple seem to be making a go of it, but life, jobs, family and even military service take a toll on the relationship. It's well observed, especially in the rural sections, and charmingly acted, but the natural flow of events doesn't really stick with you. Hou has trouble balancing the plot strands and particularizing the relationships, asking for a response out of proportion to what we've seen. No doubt this is not a problem for Taiwanese audiences, but then Ozu & De Sica managed the trick, didn't they.