The Garden Cinema brings a season of Taiwanese cinema to London until October 15th, showcasing the best of Taiwan films both then and now.
Taiwanese Cinema: Now and Then brings a collection of films from Taiwan, both old and new. A total of 12 films will be screened during the season, including Hou Hsiao-hsien’s beautifully nostalgic Dust in the Wind (1986), Edward Yang’s wonderful satire of 1990s Taipei life A Confucian Confusion (1994), and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s epic tapestry of the personal and political history of Taiwan A City of Sadness (1989). Many of the screenings are the UK premieres of recent restorations.
In addition to a collection of great Taiwanese cinema, the season will be spotlighting the early films of Ang Lee. Undeniably the most successful Taiwanese director of all time, Lee has a selection of Taiwanese films that viewers of his Hollywood blockbusters may not be aware of. The Garden Cinema will be screening all three entries in Lee’s loose ‘Father Knows Best’ trilogy: Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994).
Alongside the screenings, The Garden Cinema has organised a series of introductions, talks, and Q+A’s. This includes director Shih-Ching Tsou participating in an online Q&A following a screening of her thrilling neorealist debut, Take Out (2004).
This is the third season of Taiwanese cinema organised by The Garden Cinema.
Speaking before the opening night in the Art Deco basement bar in the cinema, curator Dr George Crosthwait explained the season showcases “Taiwanese films from the past and present. It is also meant to be an ongoing presentation and discussion for the garden cinema. Within the program you see Taiwanese masters going as far back as King Hu and key titanic names from new wave Taiwanese cinema.”
He added, “It also shows off the breadth of cinema from this small idea, which has really punched above its weight in terms of filmmaking.”
As shown at their specialist season last year on Zhang Yimou, acquiring permission to screen films is not always the easiest task. While the program is Taiwan Now and Then, and does include more recent movies, most of the films are older. Fellow curator Millie Zhou explains the reason for that is “Almost all of the recent quality Taiwanese films are acquired by Netflix”.
While they would have liked to include more films, and their initial drafts of the season did so, issues with getting the films to show from distributors were difficult.
This is also the first season of Taiwanese cinema since the opening of their third screen, which screened the season’s opening film Eat Drink Man Woman and a new atrium bar. Dr George Crosthwait explained the choice for Eat Drink Man Woman came because “you’ll come out of it feeling very hungry and quite thirsty and you’ll come out to a reception with Chinese snacks and drinks, so it’s a perfect movie for that kind of reception.”
“It’s celebrative in a way”, adds Millie Zhou, “It comes from the idea we want to do something different every year, this year we wanted to do a proper Taiwanese-style reception, and this movie matched that best.”
Watching Eat Drink Man Woman you have to agree with their assessment. The movie opens with a long shot of a father preparing a mouth-watering dinner for his adult daughters. This beautiful representation of food continues throughout, and by the time the movie finished, I certainly was desperate to dig into some Taiwanese snacks.
If you like this article why not read: The Garden Cinema brings Chinese great Zhang Yimou to the UK
