Island Etude

With a lot of things, if you don't do them now, you will never have the opportunity again.

When a film makes you want to go through the oft-ignored credits list, you know it's got something to it. Island Etude is an unassuming Taiwanese film about a boy called Ming (Ming-hsiang Tung) who takes a week-long bicycle tour around Taiwan. At the outset one becomes aware that this is going to be an extremely calm story with no dramatic incidents or twists apart from the constant turning of his wheels. Ming is shown to have a communication handicap, but his easygoing personality invites chance encounters with a host of people he meets along the road... right from an enthusiastically helpful film crew, to a spoilt ipod-waving teenager to a free spirited Lithuanian model.
His trail cuts though a slice of Taiwan's culture and society, exposing him and the audience to local customs, folk art and religious values. Ming discovers the wistfulness of a schoolteacher and the brave suffering of the unemployed aged, experiencing the emotions they invoke but breezing past before they can drag him down.  His aimless determination to carry on through rainstorms and searing hot sun is heartwarming. The point of his travels is to travel, giving a whole new meaning to the act of cross country biking.

The thing that really stands out and makes the film, is the cinematography. Cinematographer Huai-en Chen has also written and directed this film, and there is a harmony in the interweaving of long still shots of the landscape and soulful background music devoid of any lyrics. The characters are realistic and likeable and the actors are without any frills or larger-than-life qualities, leaving it to the scenery to dominate.

Ming's journey is almost entirely coastal, but the sea never gets monotonous with its brilliant sheen, dull mist or crashing white surf engulfing the scene at different times of the day. The setting is essentially modern, with an an endless stretch of developed highways running along the coast. The two are juxtaposed very delicately, one memorable example being where Ming meets a foreign model who is stranded at a railway station, and helps her find a train. In the brief interlude before the train's arrival, they walk on the beach, lie on the rocks and laugh together despite not understanding a word the other says. The ''Pacific wind'', a recurrent theme in the film, runs through her hair and gives it a life of its own. Then she turns around, and is suddenly the only alive thing against the backdrop of a colourless cement factory with tall, grey, unshakeable arms blocking out the sky.

The soundtrack doesn't make that much of an impact, barring an obnoxiously loud score for Ming's quick escape from a pair of cops after assisting some philosophy-spewing wayward youths in vivid graffiti-spraying. The closing song, performed on the shore by one of Taiwan's most famed singers, is a moving tribute to the land and the ocean. The poetry was effectively conveyed even through subtitles, which is saying something.

If somebody were to ask what the film is about, one would be lost for an answer. Island Etude may not pack a powerful Hollywood punch, but it is a 2-hour visual extravaganza that must be watched on a big screen.

(Film screened at the Pune International Film Festival 2010)