How Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo set the blue­print for Moonlight

Although not all of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 18 fea­ture films have been made avail­able to West­ern audi­ences, the vet­er­an Tai­wanese director’s import and influ­ence still pro­nounces itself, every once in a while, in the work of oth­er film­mak­ers. To the unini­ti­at­ed, the sub­ject mat­ter of a typ­i­cal Hou film may seem chal­leng­ing, even impen­e­tra­ble. Their rig­or­ous exam­i­na­tion of pre- and post-colo­nial Tai­wan is per­haps off-putting, but their inno­v­a­tive style – form and visu­al lan­guage – has proven huge­ly inspirational.

That this kind of exchange exists between East Asian and Euro­pean cin­e­ma is hard­ly sur­pris­ing. That Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ Moon­light is shot and scored the way it is, how­ev­er, is quite extra­or­di­nary. Emerg­ing con­fi­dent­ly and ful­ly formed, the many below-the-line Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions (Orig­i­nal Score, Cin­e­matog­ra­phy, Film Edit­ing) this Mia­mi-set dra­ma has received might dis­miss, or tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend, the frus­trat­ing argu­ment that some films are guilty of pri­ori­tis­ing style over sub­stance. Both Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo and Moon­light are com­ing-of-age films in which the tech­ni­cal achieve­ments of many serve a director’s sin­gu­lar sto­ry­telling. Supreme­ly cin­e­mat­ic, they are sub­stan­tial feats of con­tem­po­rary filmmaking.

With Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo, Hou trades his usu­al tem­po­ral dis­tance from an his­tor­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, his sub­ject mat­ter, for a crit­i­cal one. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly about his home or his own back­sto­ry, the film is an effort at diag­no­sis – an attempt to con­vey the anx­i­eties of a gen­er­a­tion, a young, urban alien­ation the direc­tor describes as ​“their cycle and rhythm of ​“birth, age, ill­ness and death””. Set in 2001, the film fol­lows Vicky (Shu Qi), who shares an apart­ment with her abu­sive, con­trol­ling DJ boyfriend. With­out steady employ­ment, they turn to drink and dab­ble in amphet­a­mines. Vicky is evi­dent­ly lone­ly – her life appears aim­less, her lifestyle some­what self-destructive.

Like Moonlight’s orig­i­nal score – a ​“chopped and screwed” cross­fad­ing of clas­si­cal music and hip-hop, break­beats slowed way down – it’s the evoca­tive sound design of Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo that, most vis­cer­al­ly, trans­fers the film’s mood to its audi­ence. The Taipei rave scene sees Vicky and her friends trapped by the propul­sive rhythm and rep­e­ti­tion of its entranc­ing, men­ac­ing tech­no sound­track. This high tem­po con­verse­ly reveals an actu­al, absolute sta­sis – bore­dom being core theme. More sub­tle is how Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo cap­tures this tedious truth (the relent­less pass­ing of time) through its cin­e­matog­ra­phy. In par­tic­u­lar, the film’s icon­ic open­ing shot estab­lish­es and epit­o­mis­es so well so much of what Hou accom­plish­es here stylistically.

Part pro­logue, part metaphor, the scenes fol­lows Vicky as she walks through an over­pass, in for­ward march from point A to point B, occa­sion­al­ly turn­ing, break­ing the fourth wall. She pro­vides voiceover from 2011, 10 years in the future, refer­ring to her­self in the third-per­son. Unlike Moonlight’s three-part struc­ture, we some­how wit­ness both past and future ver­sions of Vicky meet­ing in the mid­dle, in the film’s con­tin­u­ous present tense.

Every­where, the film’s inven­tive cam­er­a­work strives to con­vey this sense of con­ti­nu­ity, what it means to expe­ri­ence time. Often, images appear strained, a blur before things adjust and come into focus, or as long unin­ter­rupt­ed takes that wait patient­ly for Vicky to fin­ish smok­ing her cig­a­rette. But always, the image is able to adapt, quick­ly arriv­ing at new com­po­si­tions in spite of being in con­stant movement.

Amid the motion and the stag­na­tion, Vicky is offered one poten­tial reprieve. Just as Moon­light uses alter­nat­ing colours and hues, in a sub­lime scene Vicky trav­els to a film fes­ti­val in Yubari, her sal­va­tion tak­ing the form of a small town buried under blan­kets of bril­liant white snow. Reflect­ing light dif­fer­ent­ly – not what glows or is obscured under a Taipei nightclub’s black-light – the snow caus­es the Vicky here to appear hap­py. At the same time, it remains sym­bol­ic of all that is ephemer­al and evaporating.

The film’s final scene leaves the ques­tion of whether Vicky man­ages to break out of her repet­i­tive cycle unre­solved. End­ing in Yubari, it con­cedes that it is valid to shuf­fle the scenes into a dif­fer­ent order and for the film, tech­ni­cal­ly all told in flash­back, to still make sense. This com­plete, cumu­la­tive fragili­ty gives Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo a hyp­not­ic qual­i­ty, the ambi­ent open­ing – lit from above, the pic­ture lit­er­al­ly flick­er­ing, com­ing-and-going – demon­strat­ing how a film that takes place most­ly by night remains pos­i­tive­ly translucent.

Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo is a time cap­sule of these ten­der years, at once ghost sto­ry, sou­venir and SOS sig­nal. Like delayed rays of light from a dying star, the film is a trans­mis­sion from a time that no longer exists. Not com­pa­tri­ots but cut from the same cloth, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Bar­ry Jenk­ins bring their respec­tive con­stel­la­tions into per­fect align­ment, cre­at­ing two bril­liant panoram­ic char­ac­ter stud­ies with few easy epiphanies.

Mil­len­ni­um Mam­bo is screen­ing along­side the debut shorts of Mia Hansen-Løve as part of the Barbican’s Chron­ic Youth Film Fes­ti­val in Lon­don on Sun­day 19 March. For more info vis­it bar​bi​can​.org​.uk