Xi meng ren sheng (The Puppetmaster)

A deeply moving film that silences you and leaves the theater after 142 minutes changed and perhaps wiser. A film about eight decades on Taiwan (which the Europeans once called Formosa) and about the coexistence, juxtaposition and opposition of three cultures that characterize the first half of the century on the “Beautiful Island”: the torn Taiwan, seeking to find itself, the dominant Japan and the ancient China (the mainland, which is at once a dream, a myth and, after the Second World War, an enemy). Eighty-four-year-old Li Tien-lu, actor in several Hou films and Taiwan's most famous puppet master, recounts his life. Intense, calm and detached, the camera observes what is shown, only to explore in such silence what is hidden inside the characters. According to Hou, it was in these shadowy and silent rooms that he encountered the memories of his childhood. (H.T.)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum