"Letter to A'ma", director Chen Hui-ling 2021 ***half
"Letter to A'ma", director Chen Hui-ling.
Impressive docu based on a visual arts teacher teaching a large art project, how she taught high school kids to interview their grandpa grandma, draw a portrait, film vidéo, those who don't like drawing but love to sing could sing etc. Heart warming documentary with works by high schools students, lead by director Chen Hui-ling, images, music, content all exceptionally authentic, tears, words, memories of personal family histories set in the back ground of the history of Taiwanese - not Taiwan but Taiwanese because the people who lived on the island have a mixed history of being ruled/colonised by various countries from afar - including the carefully silenced, un-mentioned parts of how Chiang Kai Shek came to Taiwan which is actually an important part of contemporary history of Chinese people. The portraits painted by the high school students of their grandpa, grandma were especially charming and full of emotional authenticity. I see the differences between those who could talk about their experiences and those who stay mum. Ones who cried, and ones who forgave. The grandma who cried softly of the atrocities that happened, softly told what happened. The one who forgave really cannot remember much details of the atrocities, she remembered how this young man came to court her, the happy times. When the young people asked her, why do you forgive them? She said, you just forgive, because what else could you do? She was daughter of an important Aborigenes chief. The way she laughed, recounted about the Japanese invaders how life used to be, she did not present herself as a victim even though what happened to her was just as bad as the others.
Often, everyone - the young ones - in the movie speaks about feeling a "language barrier" between the older generation and the younger generation, but is this real? Is the barrier attributed to languages only specifically in Taiwan? What is a "language barrier"? Maybe it could also be a "generation gap"?
To be cont'd...
writer: Shuen-git Chow
No comments:
Post a Comment