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| THE RIVER | Taiwan |
 Awarded a prize in
the 1997 Berlin Festival, this drama draws a parallel
between life and the waters of a river, in this case, the
polluted Tamsui in Taipei. "Life is like a river:
there is always some dark corner, deep and swampy",
says the motto of the film and, as from this, the
director constructs the Hsiao-kang trajectory.He is a simple boy who lives in an apartment in Taipei with his parents. The three hardly talk to each other and live lives that are completely separate from one another, although they reside under the same roof. The mother works as a lift operator, and she is having an affair with a pirate of erotic videos. The father, who is retired, seeks momentaneous pleasure in the gay saunas of the city, and the son just makes do without a job and without great objectives. Hsiao-kang takes on a short job as an extra in a film and acts in several scenes in the polluted waters of the Tamsui river. As from then, he begins to feel a severe pain in the neck. The pain grows more acute as do problems at home, such as a leak in the ceiling of his father's room. At the same time as they try to find some means of channeling water, they try to find every kind of help for the boy. In his despair to be cured, he travels with his father to Taichung where he is attended by a quack doctor. While he waits for his son to be seen, the father decides to visit a local sauna. Coincidentally, Xiao-kang has the same idea. That night, it rains heavily on Taipei, and the mother must take measures on her own to prevent the house from flooding, in this story that makes up the director's trilogy formed by Rebels of the Neon God and Vive L'Amour. |
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