Taiwanese Film from Argentina: Aesthetics of Antipodality and the Dissolution of Defeat
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Adam Lifshey
Adam Lifshey is a Professor at Georgetown University in Washington. His publications include
The Magellan Fallacy: Globalization and the Emergence of Asian and African Literature in Spanish, which won a worldwide competition for the best book published between 2009 and 2015 in English, French or Portuguese on any topic linking Asia and Africa. His work in Taiwan Studies includes essays in journals in Taiwan and the Philippines, and a chapter in the volumePositioning Taiwan in a Global Context .
Abstract
This essay analyzes the cinema of Juan Martín Hsu, an Argentine filmmaker born to Taiwanese parents. His work includes the documentary The Moon Represents My Heart (La luna representa mi corazón, 2021), whose title in Spanish is a translation of the Teresa Teng ballad better known as 月亮代表我的心. The movie, set in Taiwan and highlighting a Taiwanese cast, joined Hsu’s art house short Zebra Finch (Diamante Mandarín, 2015) and his feature film The Salada (La Salada, 2014) as cinematic attempts to yoke Taiwanese and Argentine worlds together. The three films, however, do not achieve such synthesis. This failure is remarkably productive for their viewers, who, faced with the unresolved juxtapositions, are charged with constructing meanings that somehow span the planet. Aesthetics of antipodality are therefore inherent in Hsu’s films, aesthetics that entail placing together opposite ends of the earth in an effort to generate meaning that arises beyond all borders and divisions. This effort is, in its failure, fruitful, for it forces the viewers to take up the work that Hsu himself has not managed to finalize.
About the author
Adam Lifshey is a Professor at Georgetown University in Washington. His publications include The Magellan Fallacy: Globalization and the Emergence of Asian and African Literature in Spanish, which won a worldwide competition for the best book published between 2009 and 2015 in English, French or Portuguese on any topic linking Asia and Africa. His work in Taiwan Studies includes essays in journals in Taiwan and the Philippines, and a chapter in the volume Positioning Taiwan in a Global Context.
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