Aquele Dia, na Praia

The feature debut of lionized Taiwanese New Wave director Edward Yang, THAT DAY, ON THE BEACH enterprisingly surveys the shifting sand of Taiwan sociology at its time (namely the 1970s when women are awaken by an urge to modernize their roles in the society), through the microcosm of a young woman's checkered life and her resultant transmogrification.

A frame story begins in the present time, an accomplished pianist Weiqing (Terry Hu) returns to her motherland Taiwan for the first time after 13 years abroad for a one-night-only solo concert and dithers about the invitation to meet Jiali (Sylvia Chang), the younger sister of her ex-boyfriend Jiaseng (Tso Ming-Hsiang). Finally, Weiqing cancels the afternoon press conference and meets Jiali inside a coffee shop, after exchanging courtesies, the narrative rewinds back to the college years when they first met.

Yang rejects a more conventionally chronological narrative and jump-cuts between different time-frames according to the subjects of Jiali and Weiqing's laconic conversation, with only Jiali's varying coiffures as signifiers (short-haired, curly, fringed or schoolgirl style) of its specific time. The chunk of the story happens during Weiqing's absent years, after she is jilted by Jiaseng, who yields to an arranged marriage organized his father, and soon takes up the latter's baton of their family's private clinic.

Affected by her brother's choice, when come to marriage, Jiali goes the opposite, sneaking out of her parents' at night and marrying her college boyfriend Cheng Dewei (David Mao) of her own accord, but conjugal rift eventually catches up with them, aka. the irreconcilable conflict between a business-thrusting husband and a love-wanting housewife and the life as she knows it, is forever changed on "the day on the beach", when Dewei mysteriously vanishes without any warning.

Naturally we are intrigued by Dewei's determinate whereabouts, is he dead by suicide or furtively decamps abroad with his company's money? Yang deliberately keeps the answer at bay, as audience will realize then, either outcome makes no difference for Jiali, she is alone again, and offered a new lease on life if she can live down the past and find her feet. This female-emancipation leitmotif reveals Yang's deeply humane aspect of his view on life, in line with a keen eye on atmospheric burnishing and a propensity for unobtrusive long-takes, Yang's artistry has already shaped an incipient mold in his first, ambitious undertaking.

On a less celebratory note, the film suffers mostly for its bloated length, a 166-minute is a stretch for the elliptical modality in Yang's spatio-temporal leaping storytelling, which is further exacerbated by the cast's stilted diction of a faintly histrionic screenplay (proffered by the celebrated writer Wu Nien-Jen nonetheless), its dialogue, more often than not, oscillating between mawkish to forced poetic, it brings about a detached un-realness to a Chinese ear (it is lesser a problem for subtitle readers though), a rookie's mistake as the symptom would be massively ameliorated in Yang's later works.

The multi-hyphenate Sylvia Chang barely reaches her 30s, so it is a proper time for her to straddle the 13-year age gap from a callow college student to a mature business woman and she is most eloquent in those wordless, emotion-betraying close-ups, whereas a prepossessing Terry Hu proves herself to be a true screen beauty of her time, to a point it almost makes her character's abandonment like an achingly preposterous joke. In the main, THAT DAY, ON THE BEACH is a resounding testament of an auteur's first step into his vocation and heralds a rosy future in the offing (ill-fatedly Yang died in 2007, aged 59, with only 7 feature films under his belt).

Nearly perfect, felt dragging at times and not exactly great editing, but a good film to watch when you are stuck in a rut. It doesn't have to be about love and marriage but the questions in life. And the most unlikely people have the best wisdom sometimes: from the playboy business man to the jaded pianist. Even the old friend that made the most mistakes. Nobody has a spotless life and change comes when you accept the intentions in the previous life.

The lighting and cinematography are spectacular for a very impressive film debut of Yang. Sometimes the bare basics can carry a film and the actors find a way to be comfortable with the story.

Edward Yang's early work is as powerful and inspiring as his later works and it deserves as much recognition and worldwide appreciation as A brighter summer Day(1991), Yi Yi(2000) etc. A story of two school friends meeting and sharing their journey on how they became what they are and not just being centered around the two leads but also everyone they met during that time provides one of the best examples of character study in cinema. It might not be a Taxi driver or a Fight club but it doesn't fall behind those movies in any aspect. Everyone has their own struggles, they might not show it but they are struggling everyday to be what they are and have an identity of themselves. As the film progresses the story of the two female leads also develops, Yang carefully uses camera angles and colour tones help in setting the mood of the scene, the smooth and calm soundtrack also helps in conveying the mood of the situation. Yang's directing style of telling the story non-linearly and going back and forth various years even decades was a bold step yet rewarding and The hairstyle of the protagonist in every time-period helps the viewers keep track of the timeline easily. It's a simple story that might happen to anyone of us yet it is powerful enough to keep us seated for its durtion on our seats and enjoy every new developments in the lives of the leads. Edward Yang is no doubt the master of human emotions which is even evident from the fact that we as viewers too care less about what happened at the beach that day as Jia-li.

I'm genuinely bowled over by Edward Yang's first directorial feature film, having false started with a short in an omnibus of four with In Our Time, and having written The Winter of 1905. That Day, On The Beach is a sprawling 167 minutes of pure cinema, blessed with an incredible cast who brought out the intense story that unravelled through a series of flashbacks, and at times, flashbacks within flashbacks, that demonstrated Edward Yang's tremendous control over all aspects of this production. Don't let the running time put you off, as there's no waste to everything put on screen, all for a stated purpose adding up to the many themes explored.

The film opens with Qing Qing (Terry Hu), a world renowned pianist who reluctantly looks up an old friend, Jia Li (Sylvia Chang) for an afternoon tea time chat to catch up on old times, since Qing Qing had dated Jia Li's brother Jia Lin (Zhuo Ming Xiang) very early on in their lives. As Jia Li recounts this past, we're introduced to her family where their doctor father rules the household with an iron fist, as do most Chinese families of the time, and choices are made for them from the hobby of listening to classical music, to that of their eventual arranged marriage, which stood in the way of Qing Qing and Jia Lin. Not wanting to suffer the same unhappy fate as her brother, Jia Li elopes with her teenage beau De Wei (David Mao), which opened up the door to a lot more stories to be told on Jia Li's life, culminating in a L'Aventura-ish mystery of a disappearing man.

Imagine catching up with a long lost friend and trying to backfill all that had happened between those missing years, and that's what this film felt like, engaging you from the start as you follow the proceedings attentively, almost in curious voyeuristic fashion swallowing every sliver of information hook, line and sinker. There are shifting points of view from character to character that makes this a story about varying perceptions to same events, and the bulk dealt with the director's view points of the death of romance, and the issues that inevitably arise to plague a marriage of two souls, discussing the issue of how the modern day office life of a go-getting attitude will take its toil on married life, and the usual trust or the lack thereof that stems from suspicion that can snowball into something disastrous, made worse by disappearing passion in a relationship.

Sylvia Chang is a one woman tour-de-force here, and this film shows why she's one of the best in her heydays. Taking on the role of a woman maturing over her trials, tribulations and baptism of fire, she shows she's quite the chameleon playing the character over different age groups, made possible - and for the audience to follow with ease over the narrative timeline - through the creative use of hairdos and wigs, as she transforms from innocent schoolgirl, to dutiful wife, to finally what would seem as a confident, successful businesswoman. She breathes life into the multi-faceted character of Jia Li as she engages friends, husband, and a fleeting moment of near infidelity with ease, with the right emotions punctuating each scene.

And coupled with the strong performance, I can't praise the story more than enough through its layers and layers that deal with different familiar family and relationship issues over time. Edward Yang also keeps up that anticipation of wanting more with actually delivering over and above that expectation, with subplots and new themes popping up with each segment of Jia Li's life, a social commentary of sorts on the state of affairs in the era portrayed, which lifts That Day, On The Beach above what could just be an above average melodrama if under a different helmer. Christopher Doyle lenses this film early in his career, which of course is a plus point for those acquainted with his works, and the editing is top notch in the various transitions between timelines, providing parallels from one cut to the other, never confusing, but enhancing the feel and mood of the story.

It's hard to believe this incredible film is only Edward Yang's feature debut, that promises a lot more to come from the maestro as this retrospect goes on, culminating in what would arguable be his most famous film Yi Yi. Meanwhile, this is one film that resonates tremendously and possesses that great re-watch factor that not every film can possess. Highly recommended!

the late Edward Yang is considered one of Taiwan's best directors. My first and only experience with Mr. Yang before this movie was Yiyi, his last movie which I much enjoyed. When this moved was being shown at the Los Angeles museum I had to check it out. A story about the lives of two women, it is ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying. It is also too long at a whooping 166 minutes. It mistakes narrative for storytelling and No, they are not the same thing. Narrative is dialogue and action which occur in a story; storytelling takes the narrative along to move the story. Stillness versus action. Caught in a trap, it meanders and it becomes to difficult to decipher what the movie is really about. Taiwanese culture on women it seems like but I can't be sure, the failure of the modern marriage, missed dreams, you don't get what you want but what you need; coming of age' all of this or none of this. Following a business man and his wife over several years, it offers no answers and worse no story. That said, he is no hack and dazzles momentarily with little bursts here and there of pure nouveau camera movement and sharp framing with claustrophobic use of music. Wide lensing is impressive to look at but never adds up to much. The best part or unusual part of the movie is the red herring set up that isn't really a red herring but sets the audience up expectations the movie does not deliver to my satisfaction. It feels like a French New wave picture; one of those Godard or Malle pictures that emphasized women as the leads but likes the heart. For all its ambitions, it is stilted, bridled and clouded behind its fog. It's a movie only the director can understand because he seems to close to it, he misses the necessary long hand which is needed to convey the story and reduces it to a shorthand that is misunderstood. Despite all of my negative connotations (more my trying to come to terms with this opus)it is a worthy effort from the director who made the great family drama Yiyi.