A CONFUCIAN CONFUSION: Coupling and Capitalism, Edward Yang-Style

  Edward Yang directed only seven feature films before his untimely death from colon cancer in 2007, yet the relatively small size of his filmography—which also includes a segment of the omnibus In Our Time that served as his directorial debut—should not belie his legacy as one of the most important filmmakers of the Taiwan New Wave. Films like Taipei Story, A Brighter Summer Day, and Yi Yi are repeatedly revisited by audiences who remain enraptured by Yang’s intricate storytelling, and the way he was able to capture both the intimacy of human relationships and the expansive changes experienced by Taiwan across the decades. At first glance, A Confucian Confusion might seem like an oddball film in Yang’s oeuvre. Originally released in 1994 as Yang’s follow-up to the sprawling drama A Brighter Summer Day, it’s a needle-sharp satire of life in a city increasingly in the thrall of capitalism and a portrait of the various young people who are struggling to find meaning in it all. But as the film unfolds, it becomes quite clear that A Confucian Confusion is quintessentially Yang, from the keenly sensitive glance he directs toward fading romances to the way he portrays the rapidly evolving city of Taipei—a place that can bring people together just as easily as it can tear them apart.

The Young and the Restless

A Confucian Confusion is centered on a tangled web of young professionals in Taipei who are all somehow connected: either via work, love, or a messy combination of the two. Molly (Ni Shu-Chun) runs an advertising agency with an iron fist, though the company would be on the verge of going under if it weren’t for a financial infusion from her rich fiancé, Akeem (Chen Yi-Wen). Akeem was originally engaged to Molly’s sister (Chen Li-Mei), a talk show host, but she broke it off when she fell in love with a novelist (Hung Hung); said novelist has recently written a book about Confucius returning to modern society and being displeased with what he finds.

Akeem suspects that Molly is having an affair, though he has a hard time pinpointing with whom in their circle it might be. He suspects Molly’s old school friend Birdy (Wang Ye-Ming), an eccentric playwright who may or may not have plagiarized the aforementioned novelist’s earlier work; in actuality, Akeem’s trusted business advisor, Larry (Danny Deng), is the one trying to get together with Molly. This is despite Larry having not only a wife but also a mistress, aspiring actress Feng (Richie Li)—who, it just so happens, he helped get a job at Molly’s company. Also working at Molly’s company is another close school friend of hers, Qiqi (Chen Shiang-chyi in one of her earliest roles, before she became synonymous with the films of another Taiwan New Wave filmmaker, Tsai Ming-liang). Qiqi is contemplating leaving to take a job with better prospects for the future, but she’s afraid to tell Molly. She’s also struggling in her relationship with longtime fiance Ming (Wang Wei-Ming), who in turn is preoccupied with the fact that he may have gotten a work friend (Chen Yi-Wen) not only fired but on the verge of being prosecuted.

The Meaning of Life

Yang throws us into the…well, confusion of A Confucian Confusion without a great deal of exposition. We learn about these characters by watching them in the moment, such as when Molly fires Feng in a fit of rage, Qiqi and Ming have a screaming fight in the back of a cab, and Larry attempts to tiptoe around Molly’s inquisitive questions during a car ride together. Indeed, there are a lot of car rides in A Confucian Confusion and a lot of pivotal conversations that take place during them; our characters are almost always in motion, moving through the bustling city and their busy lives without thinking long enough about what they’re going to do next. It’s when they finally do pause for reflection that they realize how empty their lives currently are, and it’s when they have encounters with people who are new to them (or, at the very least, are being seen by them in a whole new way) that they start to realize what it is they need to fill the void. This tends to be romantic passion (as opposed to marriages arranged like business transactions) and fulfilling work (as opposed to jobs so mind-numbingly exhausting that you barely have time to consider how much of it you’re wasting). And really, who can blame them?

Yang, more so than any filmmaker since Rainer Werner Fassbinder, was a master at blocking actors within a frame to focus on their characters’ feelings and relationships. In A Confucian Confusion, that blocking involves keeping elements hidden, such as masking an actor in shadow so you can only read the shape of their body language, or hiding them behind an element of the set so you cannot read anything at all—you can only hear them, and guess at what lies their voice might be telling. In a pivotal encounter between Molly and Ming in a dark alley, Yang frames their shadowy figures in a wide shot as Molly pounds on Ming’s chest in rage; as the scene progresses, their silhouettes gradually stop fighting and start embracing. Because of the way Yang depicts the scene, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment the nature of the encounter changes, but that’s a large part of what makes it such an intensely felt moment. As with many of Yang’s other projects, most of the characters in A Confucian Confusion are played by inexperienced and/or non-professional actors. This works, to a degree, though there’s a reason the most compelling character in the film—Chen Shiang-chyi’s Qiqi—is played by the actor who went on to have the most remarkable career. Ni Shu-Chun is also a standout as Molly, a woman who is not likable so much as it is impossible to resist the force of her personality; she sweeps through each scene like a storm with a pixie cut, demanding everyone around her acquiesce to her desires with little thought to what they might want themselves. Those who stand up to her must withstand the gale force of her fury, but if they can do so, they are greatly rewarded.

Newly restored in 4K by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute with the support of Yang’s widow, Kaili Peng, and Kaleidoscope Pictures, A Confucian Confusion looks lovely; the flaws and stains in the print used for the restoration are nowhere to be found, but it still has the grain and palette that one associates with films from that era. And at a time when the aesthetic of the 1990s is coming back into vogue, the film serves up many moments of that aesthetic at its best. The women, in particular, look fantastic, clad as they are in a variety of stylish little black dresses that would still make for ideal office attire almost thirty years later. Yet even though the film depicts Taipei at a very specific time in its tumultuous history, the personal struggles that Yang explores in A Confucian Confusion remain timeless.

Conclusion

While it may not have the same lingering emotional impact on the viewer that his better-known films are capable of, A Confucian Confusion shouldn’t be dismissed as minor Yang—not when it provides such a wry and witty glimpse at what it’s like to be young and lost in a world changing too fast for you to keep up. The new 4K restoration of A Confucian Confusion begins screening December 24, 2023, at Film at Lincoln Center as part of Desire/Expectations: The Films of Edward Yang.