A/B side VIBES. Greatest Hits from ‘80s & ‘90s
Dust in the Wind
戀戀風塵 (Lien Lien Feng Chen)
Taiwan, 1986, 113’, Taiwanese
Restored 2010
Directed by: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Screenplay: Wu Nien-jen, Chu Tien-wen
Photography: Mark Lee Ping-bing
Editing: Liao Ching-sung
Production Design: Lau Chi-Wa, Ju Lin
Sound Recording: Tu Duu-chih
Producers: Chang Hua-Kun, Shiu Guo-liang
Cast: Hsin Shu-fen, Lee Tien-lu, Wang Chien-wen, Chen Shu-fang, Lawrence Ko, Yang Li-yin
Having completed junior high education, Wan leaves his hometown for Taipei City. With him is Huen, the girl he grew up with. He is 15, but has known Huen for 14 years. In Taipei, they lead a very hard, but happy life. Perhaps there is love fostering between them. They, however, do not perceive it. Then, Wan is drafted into military service. On the eve of his departure, Huen gives him 1,096 self-addressed and postal stamped envelopes. She wishes that Wan would write to her every day during his three-year military service period, in which, there is one leap year. Perhaps Huen is too lonely when Wan is away, she eventually marries somebody else before Wan’s return.
Based on the personal experience of Wu Nien-jen, the co-writer of the film, Dust in the Wind explores the rural-urban relations and the social development in Taiwan in the 1960s; moreover, it depicts the work environment of the miners and the urban workers at that time. Written by Chu Tien-wen, shot by Mark Lee Ping-bing, sound recorded by Tu Duu-chih, edited by Liao Ching-sung with the music score composed by Chen Ming-chang, the film is a collaboration between director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s key crew members in Taiwan New Wave. The aesthetic features such as the long takes and the scenery shots demonstrate Hou’s realistic style. It begins with a train running through tunnels, darting between darkness and light. From town to city and from the traditional to the modern, Hou turns the film into a time tunnel. By reenacting the personal memories of a close friend, Hou conveys not only the loneliness and the sense of separation the young lovers suffer when facing the harsh reality but the sadness he himself feels when seeing people inevitably bow down to their fates.
Hou Hsiao-hsien
Hou Hsiao-hsien is a leading figure in world cinema and in Taiwan’s New Wave cinema movement. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1989 for A City of Sadness (1989), and the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 for The Assassin (2015). Internationally, Hou is known for his austere and aesthetically rigorous dramas dealing with the upheavals of Taiwanese history of the past century by viewing its impacts on individuals or small groups of characters. Other highly regarded works of his include The Puppetmaster (1993) and Flowers of Shanghai (1998).
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
1986 – Dust in the Wind
1989 – A City of Sadness
1993 – The Puppetmaster
1995 – Good Men, Good Women
1996 – Goodbye South, Goodbye
1998 – Flowers of Shanghai
2001 – Café Lumière
2005 – Three Times
2008 – Flight of the Red Balloon
2015 – The Assassin