Autumn Moon (1992)

"Are you happy?"

Autumn Moon was a melancholy story of three lives in transition set in Hong Kong. The blue filter gave an added layer of existential angst to a 25-year-old Japanese traveler, a 15-year-old girl readying to meet her family in Canada, and her grandmother who knows that won’t be the trip she’s making.

Hong Kong teenager Lee Pui Wai and Japanese traveler Tokio meet on a bridge where he’s fishing. Tokio’s looking for a great place to eat, having been let down by his guidebook. Wai takes him to her favorite restaurant---McDonald’s. Later she brings him to the home she shares with her grandmother. Wai and Tokio communicate in broken English but Grandma doesn’t speak any and aside from asking his name, generously feeds him. Wai and Tokio strike up a friendship sharing their life experiences and the difficulties they are going through.

I was concerned this would be an age-inappropriate romance but there wasn’t a hint of romance between Tokio and Wai. Tokio had become involved with an older woman and Wai was in love with her classmate. Tokio went through women like a giant Pez dispenser. The casual sex didn’t bring any satisfaction, only reinforcing his alienation from society and himself. Aside from her grandmother, the rest of Wai’s family had already emigrated. Most of her friends had left Hong Kong as well. Once her family found a house, she would be moving. Grandma was the odd person out, unable to emigrate due to her age. The only trip she was planning on was to the Goddess of Mercy.

The available version of this movie that I found was badly degraded and cropped for television. Visually, I could see the potential spoiled by graininess and wavy lines. The dialogue could also be hard to follow when the friends were speaking broken English as there were no subtitles during the common language scenes. What still held up well was Tats Lau’s music which ranged from playful to mournful and always hauntingly beautiful.

Director Clara Law filmed the leads on different locations around Hong Kong. Though the crowded city is usually shown packed with people, Wai and Tokio always seemed to be alone. Surrounded by the unseen people and crowded buildings, they were desperately isolated in worlds of their own. The two suffered from having “trapped hearts”, unable to break through the barriers. Tokio wanted someone to get to know him instead of his 'wham, bam, thank you mam' anonymity. Wai struggled with being separated from her family and friends. Yet she wasn’t prepared to say good-bye to her grandmother and her home. She was also dealing with the complicated feelings first love creates in a young girl's heart and body. Grandma’s legacy lay in the refrigerator filled with secret, sacred ingredients that would no longer be needed.

Three generations of people and two different cultures were lovingly and respectfully shown. The characters dealt with loss, soul shattering boredom, and the unknown. Through their friendship and a private celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tokio and Wai would discover how to revel in the small moments and find the courage and contentment they would need to travel the paths that led to happiness.

“When will the spring flower and autumn moon fade,
How much of the past do we know?
At my home last night the East wind blew…”

21 August 2024

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Everyone already left

The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China in 1997 caused an emigration of citizens to the West. We see the very moment when the girl Wai prepares to leave the city forever, but she leaves behind not only home, school, but also people.

This is the story of the meeting of Tokio and Wai. They talk to each other clumsily in a foreign language, getting frustrated when they can't express their thoughts. We were drawn into their conversation, because we also try to understand what they are saying. Their friendship is a bit odd and uncommon.
A character of particular importance is Grandma. The director gently tells us the fragile relationship between the girl and her grandmother.

One of the visual themes of the film is emptiness. The director has styled the image through an intriguing play of light and shadow, showing in an overexposed photo abandoned city, a concrete pier, a house drowning in darkness and loneliness in a hospital. We see Hong Kong through the lens of a Tokio camera, and in this image everything becomes blurred, white, and without the detail. Against this colourless backdrop, the emotions of the characters are more apparent.

The film is a great visual journey through the love that takes on different forms: first youthful love of Wai, mature love of Tokio full of boring routine, love between granddaughter and grandmother. If you want to watch something slow, a small story with a artistic picture of the Hong Kong with a bit of sad nostalgia – Autumn Moon is for you.

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