Edward Yang's fifth picture is a novelistic exploration of the meanings and contradictions of Taiwanese cultural identity. Set in 1960, and based on a true incident weighing heavily on Yang's own youth, the film -- which, in its unedited form, clocks in at just under four hours -- primarily focuses on the life of S'ir, a high school student whose civil servant father was among the millions of Chinese mainlanders who fled to Taipei in the wake of 1949's civil uprisings. In the picture's opening scenes, it is revealed that S'ir is teetering on the brink of academic expulsion; like so many of the film's characters, he is clearly yearning for a stronger sense of belonging, and as a result joins a youth gang, much to the detriment of his life at home and at school. In time, he falls for Ming, a flirtatious girl with domestic troubles of her own; this ill-fated couple's circle of friends also includes Honey, an exiled gang leader, Si'r's best friend Xiao Ma, and Cat, a younger boy obsessed with Elvis Presley. (The lyrics to Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," phonetically transcribed by Si'r's older sister, lend the film its title.)

American pop music is a tendril from the outside world that has penetrated this claustrophobic, hectic island, and it expresses the universal longings and the specific frustrations that dominate the lives of Mr. Yang’s characters. The film, at bottom a true crime story about a murder, seethes with the spirit of confused, ardent rebellion that you also find in Hollywood movies from the 1950s and early ’60s, like “East of Eden” or “Rebel Without a Cause.” Focused mainly on the restlessness of a group of young men, “A Brighter Summer Day” also belongs to a tradition that stretches from “I Vitelloni” to “Mean Streets” and beyond.

But this film, completed in 1991 and only now receiving a proper American release (thanks to restoration efforts by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation and the adventurous programming of the Film Society of Lincoln Center), is much more than the sum of its references and associations. Colored by Mr. Yang’s memories of the world he grew up in, it is one of those movies that, by slow accretion of detail and bold dramatic vision, disclose the structure and feeling of an entire world.

Mr. Yang, who died in 2007 at the age of 59, is best known in the United States for “Yi Yi,” his brilliant, inexhaustibly insightful chronicle of family life in modern Taipei. Of his half-dozen other features (all of which were part of Lincoln Center’s recent retrospective, “A Rational Mind”), “A Brighter Summer Day” is, by critical consensus, the masterpiece.

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BOTTOM LINE:
A Brighter Summer Day is... essential. Yang examines the conflict between modern and traditional in his films, and frequently uses long takes and/or limited editing. Details are often obscured by alternate activity in the frame - and this seems intentional - where you may come to view the key elements only through patient observation. You must find it yourself - being the single best way to become 'aware'. There is so much value here - a film you can rewatch your entire life - and the education and discussion of the Rayns' commentary augments that merit. This Blu-ray package gets our strongest recommendation. If you are only going to buy only one Blu-ray this year - make it this one.

Gary Tooze

March 1st, 2016

Coming to Blu-ray in the UK, from Criterion, on July 3rd, 2017: