Imagine, if you will, a movie about the brothels of Shanghai in the late 19th Century. (Take a moment. Think about it.) Whatever you might imagine, whatever you might expect, whatever you might hope for, it would almost certainly bear no resemblance whatsoever to the vision of Hou Hsiao-hsien. For that, you would have had to imagine a movie restricted to the parlors and the vestibules of the brothels, one that stays out of the boudoirs (a late scene does take place in the vicinity of a bed, but the business of the scene is an attempted murder-suicide, not sex), one that never takes a peek outdoors, one that occupies itself endlessly, repetitiously, ritualistically, with tea, wine, opium, the hookah, mahjong, and of course conversation, often gossip. To describe it like that might make it sound stagy if not for the fragmentary nature of many of the scenes, the frequent switches to different brothels, and above all the tirelessly roving camera (very secure in its movement, never any Steadicam rockiness), with its constantly shifting field of view. This camera -- treading a fine line of detachment and attentiveness, allowing ample space and time for contemplation, taking no sides, finding no object of identification, yet always completely human-centered -- is the key to Hou's attainment of a moral tone without any overt moralizing, without any clumping ascent to the pulpit. And it would not be too much to find in the camerawork something more than moral, something all the way to spiritual. It would not be too much to mention Hou in the same breath with Carl Dreyer or Robert Bresson. That's quite a mouthful for a film that could sound in synopsis like a demimonde soap opera about the rivalries and jealousies and betrayals around a circle of prostitutes and their clients. But there it is. The individual plotlines do not amount to hills of beans. The point of view is the whole show. With Tony Leung, Michiko Hada, Carina Lau, Simon Chang. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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