The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985)

The Time to Live and the Time to Die is a 1985 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. The film is based upon the young life of the director and takes place from the 1940s to the 1960s. The literal translation of the Chinese title of the film is Childhood Events. I watched it last night after I got home from Christmas festivities. Like other Taiwanese films I've seen, the story progresses at a very slow pace. Hou has many long scenes lingering upon mundane details, and documenting the details of what life was like when he was growing up. Like other Taiwanese films, there is some reward in allowing yourself to become immersed in the story, knowing full well that it's going to be slow, and watching the whole thing.

The story is about a family who moves from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan in 1947 because the father has found work there. In 1949, the communist revolution happens in China and the family decides to stay in Taiwan, which is not under communist rule. The film does not focus on the politics of the situation but rather on the question of what it is like to be unable to return home.

Ah-ha is the main character, based on Hou Hsiao-hsien. In the first hour or so, he is a young boy with promise. His grandmother has predicted that he will be a great officer of some kind when he grows up. The name "Ah-ha" is actually a nickname that somehow denotes greatness. Ah-ha has both older and younger siblings but he is apparently his grandmother's favorite. She asks him if he wishes to go back to the mainland and tells him the path to get there. He asks why he would want to go and she answers that he should want to go to visit the shrine of his ancestors and pay his respects. One day Ah-ha and his grandmother travel part-way on the trail north as she described it but stop when they come to a guava tree. They pick the fruit and return home.

A pivotal moment in Ah-ha's life is when he passes his exams that will allow him to go to middle school. When he comes home and announces the news, his older sister laments the fact that she had passed exams to go to college, but was not allowed to because she is a woman. The rest of the family seems to ignore her.

The first hour climaxes with the sudden death of Ah-ha's father. There is an electricity blackout at night and when the lights come back on the father is dead. The family goes into mourning.

In the second hour time has passed and Ah-ha is now a teenager. But he is hardly the model son. He has joined a street gang that bullies people, gets in fights with other gangs, and causes trouble in general. Ah-ha is still a good student but his behavior infuriates his teacher so much that the teacher refuses to instruct him anymore.

Ah-ha's mother takes ill with throat cancer and must travel to a hospital in the city. It is his job to be the man of the house because his older brother has gone off to college. He doesn't do a very good job of it, continuing his gang activity. He also faces a dilemma about school. He can attempt to take the exams to get into college, but he wants to go to military school instead which doesn't require exams. Eventually his mother comes home. She is dying because she refused to allow the doctors to cut her tongue out. Unlike the father's death, this one is slow and agonizing. It affects Ah-ha's behavior.

After his mother's death, there is an epilogue in which Ah-ha finally gets up the gumption to approach a girl he's been eyeing from afar. She tells him, "Let's wait until after you've passed the college entrance exam." In a voice-over narration, we learn that at that moment Ah-ha decided to take the exam, but he failed it anyway. Then the girl he liked moved away and he never saw her again. Then Ah-ha's grandmother died.  As she was taken away he remembered the day they walked part-way on her road back to the mainland.

Of course there is much more to the plot than what I've described here, but this is the kind of movie where what is happening must be deciphered. There is usually not a clear explanation for what is going on. I've read that The Time to Live and the Time to Die is considered to be the second part of a coming-of-age trilogy directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, but from what I can tell the stories in the trilogy are not connected. The first and third films recall the memories of other screenwriters with whom Hou collaborated. Perhaps I'll have a chance to see them in the future.