From Taipei With Love
A Taiwanese spin on the romantic comedy genre, from the Forum section of the Berlinale.
AU REVOIR TAIPEI
In his first feature film, AU REVOIR TAIPEI (Taiwan/USA), that is shown in the Berlinale Forum section, writer-director Arvin Chen offers a Taipei that is as suitable a setting for romance as Paris is popularly assumed to be. The title, which suggests a future homecoming rather than bidding “adieu” to Taipei, indicates how central the dichotomy between these two cities is in the film.
The opening of the movie introduces Kai, the male lead, as he reads aloud a love letter that is destined to Faye, his girlfriend, who has just left Taipei to settle in Paris. What is striking about this reading is the comic effect of the French language, as mimicked by a native Chinese speaker who has not studied the language at all and who idealizes Paris as the perfect setting for true romance. By this, the tone of the film is clearly set. As opposed to mimicking “French romance” which only makes it seem less than real and totally ridiculous, Kai, the film implies, should learn to find his true romance in his homeland and in his native language. Set during the night before Kai’s intended flight to Paris in pursuit of his beloved, AU REVOIR TAIPEI couches its romantic theme in a light and amusing narrative of ramifying absurdities.
Several supporting characters contribute a number of side stories, all of them somehow love stories even though their surface concern is crime, including a crime boss who wants to retire with his girlfriend and a policeman who is unwilling to accept the end of a love relationship. AU REVOIR TAIPEI turns this lovely, colourful Asian city into an appropriate setting for romance, showing that its winding, narrow streets and cramped neighbourhoods could be as romantic as the Champs-Élysées and the Eiffel Tower.
The juxtaposition of romance with comedy in a Taipei setting provides an antidote to the melodramatic character of Kai’s platonic love, which the film associates with Paris. The same juxtaposition also makes AU REVOIR TAIPEI a comedy of romance rather than a romance story or a romantic comedy – rather than, in short, a cliché.
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