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Responses to Cape No. 7: Overheard at the Palm Springs International Film Festival

By Brian Hu

For better or worse, the beloved film Cape No. 7 has represented the hope for Taiwanese cinema. But what if nobody outside Taiwan likes it?

In late 2008, Taiwan proudly submitted the record-breaking hit Cape No. 7 for consideration in the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film competition. Beloved in its native Taiwan, Cape No. 7 is seen as the hope of an industry that has lost much of its commercial stature and has lost much respect from local audiences. Like Hollywood director Ang Lee and New York Yankee Wang Chien-ming, Cape director Wei Te-sheng has been hailed a national hero.
 
But on January 14, 2009, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences named the nine semifinalists for the Foreign Language Oscar. Cape No. 7 was nowhere to be seen, a huge blow to the film's inflated ego.
 
Anybody who actually thought that the youth romance-comedy-musical Cape No. 7 had a shot at the award obviously has no idea about the tastes of Academy voters. Those who have loudly celebrated Cape No. 7 (including Taiwanese politicians) have probably never seen The Barbarian Invasions, The Sea Inside, Tsotsi, The Lives of Others, or The Counterfeiters -- the last five films to win the Foreign Language Oscar. All five are "serious issue" dramas from countries Americans can locate on a map.

So what exactly would a typical Academy committee member think of Cape No. 7? There’s no real way to find out, but a clue can be found at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where Cape No. 7, like most films submitted for the Foreign Language Oscar, screened for local audiences.

The following is by no means supposed to be an ethnographic study of the "Western" response to Cape No. 7. Not only is that impossible because "the West" is heterogeneous, shifting, and as hybridized as "the East," but also because we have no method -- only prying ears and a love-hate attitude to what Cape No. 7 represents in Taiwan.

We also don't want to simplify the "Palm Springs film festival audience." After all, as consumers, we are part of that crowd as well. But anybody who's been to Palm Springs before will know what we mean by "Palm Springs crowd." We don't want to generalize, so we'll just provide three stats for the City of Palm Springs:

Median age: 47
Percentage of city racially white: 78.3%
Percentage of city racially Asian: 3.8%

Compare with the stats for the entire State of California:

Median age: 34.5
Percentage of state racially white: 58.9%
Percentage of state racially Asian: 10.8%

Make of that whatever you will.

Another fact of note. Palm Springs is a playground for Hollywood alumni, which probably includes some Academy voters, especially those with the time to watch foreign language submissions, which have specialized rules and thus require more time commitment. Not surprisingly, the audience award winner at this year's festival, the elegant Departures from Japan, made the final five nominees at this year's Oscars. It’s because of that overlap between Palm Springs' tastes and Oscar ones that we provide the following observations as a snapshot of what voters might have been thinking while watching Cape No. 7.
 

Overheard after the movie, as audience members left the auditorium:

That wasn't the movie I was expecting at all.

I thought the first half was wonderful.  The ending was terrible though.

That was awful.  The music was excellent, but too bad everything else was awful.

[Referring to the seating arrangement in the theater]: I would have left the theater after the first ten minutes, if it were only convenient.

The singer at the end is the same as the man on the boat.  I swear they were the same person.

Person A: How did you rate it? [referring to the audience award ballot]
Person B: Average.

It was poetic. I’m giving it a "fair" rating.

 

Overheard in a rush line for another film:

Person A: What are the worst films you’ve seen at the festival so far?
Person B: [...], Cape No. 7. It was hokey.
 
 

Compiled by Rowena Aquino and Brian Hu

Date Posted: 1/23/2009