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| Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo |
Cast: Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Duan Chun-hao, Chen Yi-Hsuan, Jun Takeuchi, Doze Niu, Jenny Tsen Yan Lei, Pauline Chan, Huang Xiao Chu. Screenplay: Chu T'ien-wen. Cinematography: Mark Lee Ping-bing. Production design: Huang Wen-Yin, Wang Chih-cheng. Film editing: Yoshihiro Hanno, DJ Fish, Giong Lim.
In Millennium Mambo, Hou Hsiao-hsien presents Vicky (Shu Qi) to us as an object of contemplation, as lacking in agency and volition as an apple in a Cézanne still life. She is being contemplated not only by us but also by herself, ten years later, so Vicky sometimes narrates events before we even see them. She is existentially passive, allowing herself to be propelled through life by others, especially men and particularly her boyfriend Hao-Hao (Duan Chun-hao) and the gangster Jack (Jack Kao). Naturally, as a woman and not an apple, she responds to stimuli, pleasure and pain, but we're no more expected to pass judgment on her than we are the apple. It's a film that replaces plot and narrative with incident and images, handsomely provided by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing, in a cinema moving away from novels and plays toward paintings and sculpture, yet retaining a connection with actuality inherent in the medium. Millennial indeed.
