Oblique Melodrama. Dust in the Wind (1986), by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Abstract

Hou Hsiao-hsien proposes a kind of modern, Chinese antithesis of classical melodrama where the expressions of the main emotions of the genre such as sadness, frustration and the feeling of a loss are blended in the indirect, oblique or parabolic modes of Eastern inspiration. Subsequently, his resulting films do not look like melodramas at first glance or only reveal as such with certain delay. This article analyses one of his most emotional films, Dust in the Wind (1986), in which this device that turns delay and slow down semantisation into its cornerstone achieves one of its highest artistic peaks.