In his new kung fu epic The Assassin,Hou Hsiao-hsien finds new ways to tell a yarn. He explains why he doesn’t care approximately pleasing his audience[br]Hou Hsiao-hsien sits at a table beside the window, gazing out at the narrow street. He has a bottle of water and a packet of lozenges for his throat. His baseball cap is pulled so low that his eyes are in shadow. Jessica the translator says: “Look at the man looking out of the window. Look at the man looking out at the road. Is he suffering from worry, and panic or delight of life?” I stare at the director. I stare at the translator. Is the question rhetorical or are they expecting an answer? This interview is not quite five minutes mature and I feel we fill already wandered some way off the path.
Feted by the critics,lauded by his peers, Hou makes films that pride themselves on being more poetry than prose, or more fugue than symphony. He wants to kick away the bricks of conventional narrative and ride the thermals of a purely visual language. “Plot,” he says and shakes his head dismissively. “I don’t believe that plot is the only way to appeal to an audience. The audience can catch the message of a film through landscape, character, and details.” Then he sneezes like a thunderclap and turns his gaze back to the glass.
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Source: theguardian.com