That Day, On The Beach

Director: Edward Yang

1983 / 166min / DCP

The little-screened debut feature by Yang, prophet of and proselytizer for the Taiwanese New Wave, features Sylvia Chang and Terry Hu as two female friends, an unhappily married housewife and a concert pianist, brought together after a 13-year separation: their process of catching up illustrated through an innovative, ingeniously layered flashback structure which shows the director’s air for formal experimentation already fully in operation. Shot by renegade cinematographer Christopher Doyle, also on his first feature, Yang’s gorgeous and deeply felt memory piece/mystery uses its intricate structure to explore, among other things, “the ways in which patriarchal authority stunts young people’s lives.” [David Bordwell]

Part of Like Mother Like Daughter