watching history from the margins- just out of sight. only through allusion and words floating in the air- interrupted by bad transmission. the drama of the nationalists against the kuomintang in the first few years of the birth of taiwan- just recently freed from japanese occupation plays out through the story of a relatively apolitical family. all the action is observed from the wings as off-screen antics destroy the family unit. in this disorienting de-centeredness the story meanders through long takes of relatively plotless minutes of everyday life- the times when nothing is happening here- but always elsewhere.
as against this the first day of the israeli invasion of lebanon is only seen close up and in the sights of a gunner stuck inside a tank. fragments of the remnants of war- piles of bodies, devastated buildings, blood and flesh seen in sudden swoops as the tank plies through the city left behind after the aircrafts are done with their business. at night the tank is stranded in the middle of travel agency and the war is visited by the eiffel tower, the big ben and the twin towers. meanwhile inside the dark claustrophobic space of the tank the four men fester in their own filth.
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