Goodbye South Goodbye (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 1996
The opening scene of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Goodbye South Goodbye really typifies the emotional and spatial
disconnection that dominates the rest of the viewing experience. As a pulsating
Chinese techno track thuds in the background, the film’s lead characters are
shown rocking back and forth on a train, mindlessly lost in the moment. Gao, the
protagonist, receives a call on his cell phone, but promptly loses the signal as
the soundtrack intensifies. The implications for the characters seem simple.
Because of their instability in life and because of the willingness of
technology to help them forget any void that their lives might contain, making
any connection is tough for them. It’s a brilliant shot, but this is probably
the closest that the film comes to eloquently making us understand their
disassociation. As the picture progresses, and we find out more about them, we
realize how aimless and empty their lives are, and because they are such
completely clean slates, they become tougher to relate to. Of course, the
problem here is that if Hou made them more interesting, his thesis would be
pretty much shot to hell.
What’s most impressive about Goodbye South Goodbye is the way in which the film seems so
completely disenchanted with the antics of its protagonists. They are small time
hoods, and though they seem to be somewhat successful in orchestrating minor
grifting schemes, the movie isn’t much impressed by it. They aren’t exactly
judged harshly either, and are instead looked at with a noncommittal
documentarian’s gaze. It seems that Hou’s feelings toward them are rather
unresolved. He can’t endorse their actions, because they aren’t exactly
living productive, full lives. At the same time, he can’t help but point out
that because of the increasingly city-based Taiwanese way of life, suddenly the
old way of life doesn’t apply, and no one has really defined for them how they
should act. The movie finds them
getting lost in video games and techno music precisely because the repetition
found in them provide a safe constancy that’s otherwise missing in their
lives.
It’s easy to admire Hou’s insistence that these
characters and our response to them cannot be defined concretely, and the
film’s ending is extraordinary precisely because it feels so arbitrary. The
techno soundtrack’s abundant energy suddenly becomes nervous anxiety, when we
realize that it’s standing in for verbal communication. Technology’s advances
seem to match life’s retreats here, and the metamorphosis becomes unsettling.
That being said, Goodbye South Goodbye
isn’t exactly an enjoyable film in a conventional sense. Because of its
disillusioned attitude toward its characters, it can’t help but feel a bit
boring at times. The static interior shots are only interrupted by exuberant
outdoor tracking shots, which gleefully take the characters to nowhere special.
To spice up their story with showy stylistic flourishes would be to lend
credence to their lifestyle, and would also invalidate the film’s hard earned
real time flow. Outside of a few situations that slowly but fiercely boil into
an explosion of violence, it can be said that nothing much happens. What must be
noted then when discussing the mildly plotted Goodbye
South Goodbye is that it isn’t what happens that is important. It’s what
doesn’t happen here (there’s no catharsis and really no climax either) that
distinguishes the film and makes it worthwhile.
* * * 1/2
3/28/02
Jeremy Heilman
