侯孝賢의 『咖啡時光』에 관한 어떤 독법

Abstract

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Cafe Lumiere(咖啡時光)(2003) is a dedicatory film that had been made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ozu Yasujiro. That is the reason for why the film is often regarded as hommage to Tokyo Story (1953) by Ozu Yasujiro. Hou Hsiao-hsien wants the film to be a chance for him to honor the significance of Ozu Yasujiro in his own way in 100 years of film history. In order to achieve his purpose, Hou Hsiao-hsien has come up with these aesthetic strategies as follows. First, two young men from Tokyo in the 21st century are introduced as his representatives. As a next step, he makes them look for a cafe called ‘TAD’ that no longer exists. A time of a Taiwanese musician, Bunya Koh, is resting in peace in the cafe. However, as for this modern time of colonization in which he was living, a time of Hou Hsiao-hsien himself is imprinted upon the time. Now, Hou Hsiao-hsien invites Ozu Yasujiro to the time of Bunya Koh. And, he faces him in geography of Border Transgression that this Bunya Koh would create. And, the two representatives are led to introspect the significance of the meeting. This study should be considered to be a kind of archaeological research on time travel. Conclusions that would be made here are summarized as below. Hou Hsiao-hsien respects ‘Asian silence’ created by Ozu Yasujiro. However, he wants to add durée réelle to the silence. By doing so, he hopes that he wakes this time of nationalism up that has been put to sleep by violence of history. The last sequence of the film is described as a good example of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s protocol to Ozu Yasujiro. Density, texture and gesture produced in this sequence are after all echoes which Hou Hsiao-hsien would send to commemorate the ‘silence’ of Ozu Yasujiro.