HHH-Portrait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien

”HHH - Portrait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien” is Olivier Assaya's first documentary. It is part of a series of film portraits made for Cinéma de notre temps produced for the French-German cultural channel ARTE. The idea behind the series is that one film maker portrays another film maker.
This makes it more personal rather than journalistic and each film differs from the other. Similar to other portraits, Assayas bases his documentary on interviews of the director and experts from his movies.
It was during his years at Cahiers du Cinéma that Assayas discovered Hou Hsiao-Hsien. He wrote an article about the Taiwanese director and gave him great recommendations, leading to a breakthrough in the West for the Asian director.
Parallel to his career as a director, Assayas has taken a closer look at Asian film. In 1984 he signed a special issue of Cahiers du Cinéma with Charles Tesson, called Hong-Kong Cinéma.
In connection with a trip to the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, Assayas got to know Hou Hsiao-Hsien, but also Edward Yang, Chen Kuo-Fu and the Australian film photographer Christopher Doyle (who photographed Wong Kar-Wai's movies and strongly contributed to their very special visual effects).
In the documentary Assayas comments that the 50 year old Hou Hsiao-Hsien belongs to ''one of the most significant directors of his time''. He compares him to Antonioni of the 1960's, but also to Maurice Pialat, who, like Assayas, also was inspired by the new wave of French film making.
-The first time I saw one of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's films, I was struck by the naked truth in his inspiration and of the truthfulness of his pictures, writes Assayas.
-The film”, An Unforgettable Summer” (1984) caught me. Tthis story about petty thiefs from the South coming to the big city, certainly has autobiographical values. He's taught himself and has, in time, reached a level of modern and ambitious film language, thanks to the spontaneous expression and the honest, straight forward way in which he views the world.

Footnote: The project Cinéma de notre temps has been going on since 1964. Since 1989 over 25 films have been produced in this series. ”Citizen Ken Loach” by Karim Dridi will also be shown at this years festival.
Marie Berthelius

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Hou Hsia-Hsien, Chu Tien-Wen, Wu Nien-Jen: Producent
Xavier Carniaux: Manus
Olivier Assayas: Foto
Eric Gautier: Talat språk
French/Taiwanese