| dc.description.abstract | There has been a consensus among local film critics that Taiwan’’s independent filmmakings, especially those of the documentary productions, flourish from the late 1980s or even earlier to the present. The reason for this current of documentary filmmaking is commonly attributed to the lift of the forty-year decree of martial law in 1987. The independent filmmakers, discouraged by the long-term ignorance of their works by the existing system, start to bypass the traditional routes of distribution and band together to screen and produce their own films. One of the examples is the project of Floating Islands. Floating Islands, Islands in Taiwan’’s Stream: Twelve Visions of Paradise Lost (流離島影), taken to be the largest plan of documentary filmmaking to be seen in Taiwan, has made itself a legend in Taiwan’’s film history up till today.
My task here is to probe into a more sophisticated relationship between the director and the filmed subject in the aesthetic innovation alternatively made in the project of Floating Islands. How should these stylistic changes be conceived, as gradual or abrupt in Taiwanese documentary history? Did they evolve an alternative style which internally or temptingly struggles against the opposing tendencies? After acknowledging the aesthetic innovation made in this documentary project, I will further question how to detect the political connotation of this geographical re-mapping of these twelve isles. Based on these concerns, the objective of my task aims to examine the crisis of documentary representation in Taiwan.
I shall illustrate the crisis by a critical reading of the aesthetic evolution of Taiwan’’s documentary of which the cinematic representation serves to mirror the social reality at various historical junctures. Hence, my argument involves questions of these canonized formations of documentary. I will also bring up the theoretical application of documentary practice in the west up to date especially focusing on the aesthetic theory in the 1990s. It is not my intention to ＂downplay＂ the theory of Taiwan’’s documentary since the theoretical advocacy in Taiwan’’s documentary remains underdeveloped. Meanwhile, the application of the western theories especially that of the notion of ＂performative documentary,＂ which I will explain later, to Floating Islands indicates the concurrence of these two practices.
I also want to emphasize the significance of the post-screening discussions held in the screening tour of Floating Islands. My observation shows that the dialogues between the directors and the audience in the discussions pinpoint the participant role of the audience who are invited to join the generation of the meaning of the film text. It is worth noting that these directors choose to perform themselves with the film text in the discussions with the audience. This interactive process helps to reconceptualize the discursive space of defining documentary.
My argument is that the discursive strategies of Floating Islands, the directors’’ self-reflexive attitude toward the filmed referent and their joining the post-screening discussion with the audience complicate the relationship between the historical discourse and the real events. The shooting process of Floating Islands, therefore, should be taken into consideration to our discussion, and can be regarded as a counter-narrative of the national discourse against the tradition of humanistic realism inherited from the New Taiwan Cinema movement (台灣新電影運動) of the 1980s. | en_US |