City of Sadness

Here’s a welcome opportunity to revisit (or discover) a breakthrough movie from one of the great filmmakers of our time.

Winner of the 1989 Venice Film Festival’s top prize, City of Sadness was inspired by the dense family saga of The Godfather. Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien (Flight of the Red Balloon, Three Times) tells a complex tale of a family’s four sons: a gangster businessmen, a doctor, a soldier, and a deaf photographer played by Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love, Hero). Each represents a facet of Taiwanese society during that country’s turbulent postwar period (between the Japanese surrender in 1945 and the beginning of martial law in 1947). (157 mins., 35mm)

Susan Philipsz’s The Dead (2 mins.) screens before tonight’s features as part of the exhibition Susan Philipsz: The Shortest Shadow.