Movie: A Bighter Summer Day

A couple days ago I finished Edward Yang's 1991 movie A Brighter Summer Day. The movie is epic (four hours long), but it is different than what I usually think of as an epic movie. I am thinking, specifically of two movies I have been watching parts of over the last week: Patton and Lawrence of Arabia.

Both of these are about larger than life figures, General George Patton, and T. E. Lawrence, respectively, who had roles in major twentieth historical events. Patton was one of the people who commanded large numbers of soldiers through Sicily and, later through Western Europe helping to end the second world war. Lawrence had an important role in ending the Ottoman Turk's domination of the Middle East.

Yang's movie is about a historical event in Taiwan in the early 1960's that did rock the island nation at the time. But, for me, the movie was much more about how martial law there (that lasted from about 1949 to 1986) had a profound effect on the daily life of one family. So, in contrast with the more traditional epics of Patton and Lawrence of Arabia, A Brighter Summer Day is intimate with a focus on the day to day events of school, a family house, and the neighborhood.

I am not sure I quite understood everything that happened in the movie, probably because I am not familiar enough with the history of Taiwan or Chinese culture, but I did enjoy the movie quite a bit. Since the running time is about four hours, I watched the movie over three nights. It is now streaming on the Criterion Channel.