Just before the start of the Rhode Island International Film Festival, I was invited to attend a premiere in Boston of Lin Cheng-Sheng's "The Moon Also Rises" at the Harvard Film Archives. It was a bit of a hellish experience getting up there from Providence- needless to say, for some reason the MBTA has two train stations with almost identical names- but well worth the effort. Cheng is from Taiwan and has directed fest staples such as "Sweet Degeneration", "Murmur of Youth", and "A Drifting Life". I'd never heard of him, but then again, I think his popularity is more centered in Asia and some European circles. He's won awards at Cannes, Berlin, and Singapore. So, I arrived at the tail end of the opening reception to the film screening, feeling sweaty and confused and not really sure of what to expect next. I happened to see a small, stout gentleman wearing James Dean suspenders getting a lot of attention. Turns out it was the director, and with a little help from a sympathetic partygoer I was able to get an introduction. There wasn't much to our conversation- he doesn't speak English and I know maybe two words in Mandarin. But he seemed very hospitable, despite the swirl of cameras and well-wishers surrounding him. It wasn't long before our crowd was ushered towards the theater to see Cheng's film.
The setting of "Moon" is a small seaside town in Taiwan. Veteran actor Yang Kuei-mei plays Baochai the mother of Xilian (newcomer Lin Jiayu who was also in attendance at the premiere party). Baochai's husband has been jailed as a political dissident on the mainland, his mountain top prison can be seen in the hazy distance, across the expanse of the Taiwan Strait. The film opens with Xilian preparing for her new job as a teacher and secretly pining for her cousin. Baochai spends most of her time clamping down on her daughter and imposing a stifling control over the life of the household. I noticed a poster of James Dean in Xilian room kept making an appearance and wondered if in the mind of Cheng this icon comes to symbolize rebellious youth. The pacing of the film is measured and the background is filled with the incessant chattering noise of the jungle. Xilian’s affections wane toward her cousin- in no small part because of her mother’s interference- and she finds herself becoming more and more attached to a handsome guitar-toting teaching colleague named Chu Cheng. Unfortunately, it is fate this time that interferes, and the colleague is transferred to a teaching assignment on the mainland. Their affair continues via letters, which are intercepted by Baochai and here is where the film makes a sudden and surprising turn. These letters drive home the loneliness and frustration of Baochai. She falls in love with Chu Cheng through the romance of his words. As the film reaches its crescendo, Xilian goes to find Chu Cheng on the same day that he comes to visit her. He arrives at her house to find Baochai in her morning robe. The slow buildup of the film intensifies its climax. Baochai seduces Chu Cheng, throwing herself upon him in an act of desperate- yet deliberate- manipulation. He succumbs and I could feel my stomach twist. You realize that things can never be the same and that there can be no real resolution. It was sort of a twist on Mrs. Robinson- though a lot less comical. Chu Cheng runs out of the house, down the road, and into the arms of Xilian, but their reunion is now bittersweet. The final scene of the film is of Baochai, silhouetted by the evening sun, methodically picking weeds from her garden.
