Taiwanese Movies Get Too Familiar
by Brian Hioe
The art of filmmaking requires a mind-boggling aggregation of effort and resources. Me? To write something, I just sit in front of a computer. I don’t need to hire actors or staff, or make-up artists, or colleagues to do long and arduous rewrites; there’s no fancy lighting or expensive cameras or editing machines, or PR junkets to pay for or arrange.
I’ve worked on films a few times, in various roles—as a consultant for accuracy, as a translator and writer of subtitles, and as an interpreter. But most often, my relation to the film industry has been as a critic of new films on the festival circuit.
That’s a thankless job, sometimes. As fascinating as I find films and filmmaking in general, considering the immense resources that are squandered, year after year, on making and promoting an endless cascade of terrible movies is appalling. I can’t help thinking: “Could that money not have been better spent on social resources? Could the people who worked on that horrible film have spent their time better elsewhere?”
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