Where to begin with Edward Yang

Perhaps there is no greater example of a functioning appearance in the twenty -first century of Edward Yang. Member of the forefront of the new Taiwan movement of cinema-which included among its ranks Hou Hsiao-HEN, Wu Nien-Jen and Ko I-Cen-made seven feature films only before his delightful death from cancer at the age Global cinema, although the long -term access can be accessible.

Until this past decade, one of his films was easily available in primitive quality, and only obtained international recognition in recent years of his career, but he deserved to be seen as a high -ranking and popular figure – it is imagined that the most common work that was praised Global in Chinese mandarin – she has a Cinephile awareness process like a few other film makers.

Yang took a circular path to the cinema, starting as an engineer in the United States, before confronting with Aguirre from Werner Herzog, God’s wrath (1972) to re -introduce filmmaking. His sensitivity was informed of multiple sources: European modernity, the relationships that surrounded him, even his careful interest in cartoons, which caused each of his tires in his film accuracy and instant intention.

Yang movies are defined by their tight coherent connection with Taipei-all of them contemporary, except for one huge exception-the seizure of its development and its ability to raise urban awareness against traditional values ​​and habits with a fixed foundation line of the basic alert and loss. The social and economic classes varied from his personalities, but the balance achieved by Yang between observation and understanding made his films dynamic and constantly changing for the emerging nation.

At first glance, it may seem strange to suggest the final director’s movie as an entry point. But one of them and two … (2000) is not the last ordinary era, not at least because Yang’s diagnosis came after he finished making it. Three -hour contemplate the Taipei family for a year, which is similar to a typical average film, as its directing instincts embraced a certain arrival with finding deeper foundations of passion.

Although Yang had other projects in the seven years remaining his life, including a moving movie starring Jackie Chan, one and two … he stands alone as a really one human film, deals with both the three central family members – New JerseyThe father played by Major Taiwan, the new cinematographic writer Wu Nin Jin; Early daughter Ting Ting (Kelly Lee); The painful son and curiosity Yang Yang (Jonathan Chang)-with a deep and accurate leadership of all the ties of the modern world, whether in relationships and crumbs that develop slowly or appear throughout the movie or more in the presence of the account with the secrets of life and death.

Each character, including these unforgettable numbers like New JerseyThe brother of his wife, who is obsessed with wealth and a wise Japanese game designer, completely retains more than ever to a city at the beginning of the millennium, and reached its climax in a final scene highlighted by the unbearable expression and which cannot be appropriate in contradictory way as the early exit.

The greatest work of Yang is his only movie: a brighter summer day (1991). A few works earn a description “a sprawling epic” clearly, as is the case: a four -hour ears point that was identified immediately after the transfer of the Republic of China to Taiwan Island, which is largely dealing with the struggle between two gangs of female students. In its first role and his father, Zhang Chen and his father, Zhang Co Chu as a government agent under suspicions of the secret police, his ability to capture homogeneous youth pain, the totem power of things, and the arriving awareness of the nation -the origin of the Chinese title is largely more severe, and a lurestation in the revelation of the final destination of the film – It is almost not equal.

Despite the emergence of these huge work, the majority of Oeuvre in Yang consists of normal tall features, no less than the occurrence or effect on its normal times. His sense of form with his second movie, Taipei Story (1985), who starred Hou Hsiao-HINEN, which is the greatest power in Taiwan new cinema and its own interests-mainly films for a period, often outside urban and contemplative centers explicitly-they were Bigly separate from Yang. Here, he ably plays part of a man who does not wander in a multiple relationship with a successful businesswoman played by Tsai Chin’s wife in Yang at the time.

The next Yang was the terrifying (1986), the most east and inspired by Anthony. A network movie launched by a police raid and a picture, it turns its tendency due to sudden violence sometimes into a structural force, and separate accounts are all on the same uncomfortable wavelength.

YANG’s international reputation was created for the first time through the two features between his beloved works, which also coincides with the most fiercest and most modern. Confucian confusion (1994) is his only comedy outside the outside, and it is sometimes satirized on the round of relations formed by the Taiwanese economy that was then. The shows have been adequately increased, but Yang wisely has never loses the possibility of moments of artistic grace.

It is appropriate that his most loving movie is preceded by the most expensive: Mahmoud (1996), which is a global global work that includes various gangsters and a French woman played by Virgin Leidin. Yang’s aesthetic, which she controls, erupts into wild colors and color transformations, great in combining Western actors on his conditions and putting some of the most despair and giving scenes side by side.

Yang was not ashamed of the type in his subsequent films, but he could still be a bit of a bit, even for his lines, to face his wonderful feature on that day, on the beach (1983). Despite his historical interest as his movie, Christopher Dowel I, he remains the most volatile Yang works, in a small part of it because of his three -hour murdrama. The transition is unexpectedly from the present and the past as a woman played by Silvia Zhang, its friendships and romances, the film is more necessary in its influence, and although it is rarely external in his movie. However, as with each of his films, his cumulative influence and vision clarity are rewarding without limits.

Edward Yang movies: talks with a friend Managing in BFI South Bank in February and March 2025.