It’s like ‘The Beatles’ in your earphone, lingering ‘Pink Floyd’ in your lonely night, ‘Ravi Shankar’ in your golden afternoons, ‘Starry Night’ in your melancholic morning. A Brighter Summer Day (1991) is a universal film and so obviously a trip down memory lane in every sense.
Edward Yang,one of the leading film-makers of the Taiwanese New Wave and Taiwanese Cinema, is a gifted filmmaker who has the uncanny merit to provoke nostalgia,rejuvenate our memories and redefine the term ‘LIFE’ in a whole new form.He is the poet of urban life reviving our adolescence, our youth and our old age.
‘A Brighter Summer Day’ like Yang’s other film, subtly conceive sociopolitical history and incorporate the class struggle through vital or trifle incidents of daily life. Take the scene where Si’r(Chang Chen) confronts the sublime theological dilemma and existential crisis and his religious sister reminds him of Jesus. Yang’s films are full of scene like this, meaningful in dramatic context and deeply rooted in philosophical argument.
The film is masterly shot and in it’s almost 4 hour epic run time, it works like a illustrious novel to which we consciously or subconsciously return every now and then in any phase of life. It’s a soul mending masterpiece reawakening our memories of friendship,memories of all the rebellion on the first verge of teen age.Its about our fist love,our first kiss,our parents, our family.Apart from the technical excellency and sheer nostalgic power, it is one of the noble and poignant love story ever told onscreen. The tragedy and aspiration it presents is just like life itself- so obvious yet uncertain.
[Review by Sabbir Parvez Shohan
A Brighter Summer Day 1991
Cinema Stalker 