Film Forum is honoring Taiwanese filmmakers through a special screening. The leading movie house will host a one-time screening of "Eat Drink Man Woman (飲食男女)" on March 28, plus a special introduction by award-winning director Ang Lee (李安). The special screening is a part of the "New Waves: Rediscovering Taiwanese Cinema of the 1980s" program which started last November, and attracted over 3,000 attendees. The repertory series was curated by Haden Guest, film historian and director of the Harvard Film Archive, along with Film Forum repertory artistic director Bruce Goldstein.
One of the wonders of the late 20th-century global cinematic landscape was the wave of remarkably talented directors who emerged in Taiwan during the 1980s. According to series programmer Haden Guest, "In the 1980s, Taiwan was the epicenter of a paradigm shift in narrative filmmaking that dramatically harnessed and expanded cinema's power to creatively engage time and emotion. The profound impact and lasting influence of these movies resonate to this day."
Ang Lee is the main director of the Taiwanese Second New Wave, and he was named one of the greatest filmmakers of the 21st Century. "Eat Drink Man Woman" was made before "Brokeback Mountain (斷背山)" (2005) and "Life of Pi (少年Pi的奇幻漂流)" (2012), for which he earned two Academy Awards for Best Director. The film was regarded as "wonderfully seductive, and nicely knowing about all of its characters' appetites," and it "makes for an uncomplicatedly pleasant experience. Its thoughts about its characters don't go much deeper than the bottom of a soup bowl, but those thoughts are still expressed with affection, wit and an abundance of fascinating cooking tips," by Janet Maslin at New York Times, following its first release in 1994.
Film Forum's repertory selections include foreign and American classics, festivals, and directors’ retrospectives. For more information, please visit:
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(Photo courtesy of Film Forum)