The Sandwich Man

Three stories from the lives of poor people in the Taiwan of the sixties: a man who paints his face like a clown and carries cinema advertising boards, two salesmen chasing a Japanese company in order to sell pressure cookers, and the compensation that falls to the family of a worker hit by an American serviceman. The film is not interested in scenes of poverty. It is interested in dependence: in each story a living hangs on the mercy of an outside power, American or Japanese capital. It makes the point without stating it, by showing the work itself. The form is consistent despite three directors: long takes, natural light, non-professional actors. That style is considered the first collective statement of what would be called Taiwanese New Cinema. The directors are Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wan Jen and Tseng Chuang-hsiang; Wu Nien-jen wrote the screenplay from stories by Huang Chun-ming. What happened to the film entered Taiwanese film history. The production company CMPC ordered eight separate changes to the third segment and the removal of certain scenes; the press called it the apple-peeling incident. Once the filmmakers took it to the newspapers and made the pressure visible, the company withdrew the order and the film was shown uncut. Who it is for: viewers curious about the beginning of Taiwanese cinema and about social realism. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace. All three parts are slow and there is almost no plot.