Kritiken

In what would become a trademark of the director's approach to history, the camera only seems to pull farther from its characters as time elapses, a reminder that the more we learn about the central family's personal lives and their sociopolitical context, the harder it is to define either.

Who's got time to talk about Hou Hsiao-Hsien's long takes when there's so much to be said about the feelings in his movies? A CITY OF SADNESS is the beautiful, massive expression Visconti, Kurosawa, Pontecorvo, Bertolucci, and Zhang spent their careers trying for but never achieved. Hou is less artful than any of them, and therefore more likely to produce art...

By presenting the tragic consequences that resulted from the mainland authorities' ever-escalating pattern of abuse of power, A City of Sadness compassionately articulates the suppressed, silent despair of a people repeatedly victimised as they search for inclusion and cultural identification.