Taiwanese director evokes a range of senses in a kind, gentle story.
I think that one of Truffaut’s irrefutable talents as a director was his ability to depict childhood from a child’s perspective, if A Summer at Grandpa’s reminded me of the French filmmaker’s gift for portraying youth in all of its honesty it is because this 1984 film eloquently captures the child’s inner world. Hayao Miyazaki’s 1989 animated film My Neighbor Totoro is perhaps seen as an animated homage to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s simple piece which shows the grandeur of child’s world and how it sometimes conflicts with the grown-up, complicated adult world.
Storied by long-time contributor Tien-Wen Chu, this is a day to day account of where crickets, trains and other children’s laughs echo their own distinctive sounds and where a potential worrisome fact is temporarily kept at bay from two small humans. The tale sees a young boy and his even younger sister stripped away from their ailing mother and sent to the countryside where they can be distracted for awhile. Symbolically, this is about the two young chicks leaving the sometimes unattended nest where they encounter the dangers of life such as harmful thugs or the railroad tracks but come out safe in the end. After they leave the mother’s bedside of the hospital, the following sequence shows a couple of family guardians throw what appears to be chicks legs to the ground, this is a foreshadowing symbol about the fragile life and the possible treacherous journey that may await them and within that same sequence they are able to fend for themselves when the cumbersome Uncle leaves them stranded on a parting train. This idea is further transferred in the character that comes off as the weak bird of the region-a drifting retarded woman who draws the composites of both an adult and child’s world. Hsiao-hsien puts aside his traditional long takes and other cinematic tools for an up-close view of Ting-Ting and Tung-Tung and he lets these character’s points-of-view do the expressing.
If the film feels refreshing it is because there is a lack of melodrama, there are the strange and potentially dangerous situations and some banal moments such as the boys swimming at the river can no longer find their clothes. Each of these moments is dealt with inside this light that shows the kids to be either totally unaware or brilliantly comprehensive beyond their means of understanding. It is interesting how we return to the character of the lost woman whose abortion and tremendous ability to care for the child or to mourn the death of a bird eventually shows the paradox of elder humans not listening to younger ones which is best expressed in the character of the grandfather who never chooses when to listen to his grandchildren.
A Summer at Grandpa’s strongest quality is that it is able to capture the child in their true states sometimes cruel, sometimes caring and more honest than not type of personalities. If you are lucky to get a chance to view this extremely rare treat then don’t waste another moment.
