by Enbion Micah Aan
語言:
English /// 中文
Photo Credit: Film Poster
GAO JUHUA (高菊花, Paicu Yata’uyungana), the daughter of the writer and musician Gao Yisheng (高一生 Uongʉ’e Yata’uyungana), was a musical star in Taiwan in the postwar period. She was also an accomplished scholar who received a scholarship to attend Columbia University. Her father was arrested in 1952 for his political activism and executed in 1953. Since then, Gao had a mark on her back, always being suspected and under investigation for subversive political activities. Gao also took on the responsibility of taking care of her siblings and had to give up the scholarship. Fearing for her life and political repercussions, Gao never recorded music, and the only records of her being a star at the time were photographs and newspaper articles.
The documentary film, La Paloma, is an emotionally devastating and honest portrayal of Gao Juhua. It is a meticulously researched documentary that deals with difficult issues and the sordid aspects of history with great sensitivity. The marketing of the film shows great restraint in that it highlights Gao but not the filmmakers–a rare and ethically sound decision in our time of “attention economy”.
La Paloma is a classic Spanish song about longing–the song narrates a sailor who imagines his own death and sends his spirit back to his lover in the form of a dove. When we hear Gao sing it, the longing is not for a lover, but for a sense of normalcy. The version we hear in the film was Gao in her old age, decades out of practice, but one can easily hear the practiced vocals and emotional devastation in her voice. What a loss, for us, that she was never allowed to develop as an artist!
It is also hard for us to understand the “pop culture” of the time, but the film does an excellent job sketching out the postwar music scene and how Gao was the original diva in Taiwan and very much a pioneer in this field. She was very popular, and her performance was demanding, as she regularly performed in a stadium with an audience all around her – a stage would have been more manageable with only the audience on one side.
Through interviews and Gao’s diary (read out loud by her daughter and brother), we, the audience, are transported to the mores of 1950s Taiwan. Because of white terror, the political implications were severe for the daughter of a confirmed dissident. This is where the documentary really struck a chord. It successfully, by way of interviews, vividly transfers us to the political mood of the time.
The film deals with very difficult issues. In the effort to eradicate “communists”, the KMT government at the time institutionalized rape as a diplomatic tool, offering up women to foreign parties for diplomatic purposes. The institutionalization of sexual assault after World War II in the context of the Cold War is severely under-discussed even today–perhaps because it is impolitic to do so given Taiwan’s dependency on the U.S.
White terror in Taiwan is often treated as if it were an isolated political movement within Taiwan. White terror, as a political science term, describes right-wing governments’ movement against left-wing elements in their nations. Only in the Cold War context does the postwar alliance between the democratic US and the despotic, fascist KMT make sense. That context is also what makes US complicity in Taiwan’s postwar atrocities legible.
The legacy of White Terror in this film, however, is about the humanness of history. History here is not some abstract idea or the distant past. History is a living, breathing experience – something easily forgotten in an academic context. Gao is a victim but also a courageous survivor. What happened to her and her family is nothing short of a tragedy, and her survival demanded nothing short of miraculous courage.
Films like this need to be made with great urgency in our time, as we might be the last generation of people with access to firsthand accounts. The same sense of urgency should also be exercised for transitional justice.
Taiwan’s peaceful transition to democracy is unique in world history–bloodshed was not demanded. However, the shadow of this peaceful transition is the lack of accountability. La Paloma, here, is also uniquely courageous in that it names a perpetrator, something the government has still failed to do thus far.