Film Forum

Taiwan, 1986
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien
Written by Chu T’ien-wen, Wu Nien-jen
Starring Wang Chien-wen, Hsin Shu-fen, Li Tian-lu
Approx. 109 min. DCP Courtesy Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute.

“A beloved favorite among Hou’s early films, DUST IN THE WIND…an affecting and poignantly fatalistic story of first love which follows a young couple finishing high school and leaving their remote mining village in search of work and a new life in Taipei. The film’s hypnotic extended opening shot on a train passing through a mountain landscape makes clear the careful formal lyricism—an absolute control of light, shadow and movement—which marks the film as an important milestone in Hou’s oeuvre. At the same time, the train is one of several pointed meta-cinematic references throughout the film (the plein air village screening, the decrepit Taiwan movie house) which reveal Hou’s canny awareness of the role of the New Taiwan cinema in shaping a mythos about Taiwanese history and place.” – Haden Guest, Harvard Film Archive notes

Reviews

“Marks the culmination of the most definitive and cohesive period of Hou’s career.”
– author James Udden