Cabaret Tears
Director: Lin Ching-chieh
Year: 1983
Rating: 3.0
Aka - Send in the Clowns
Coincidentally, I had been watching the Jacques Demy film The Young Girls
of Rochefort just recently and Cabaret Tears brought it back to mind. Young
Girls is a very joyous look at young love among a group of itinerant performers
who travel from small town to small town – with a song always on their lips.
At one point in Cabaret Tears a tune written by the musical composer of Young
Girls, Michel Legrande, ironically plays as the performing troupe in Cabaret
Tears looks back at the small town they are leaving.
This Cinema City production though is far removed from the romantic yearning
of Jacque Demy, it is in fact a surprisingly bleak, realistic and unromantic
look at a female troupe of travelling entertainers. At times it almost has
a John Cassavettes dark vérité feel to it. Stuffed into the
back of trucks like refuse, they travel from small town to small town across
Taiwan – stopping for a few days to play at seedy run down venues – sleeping
on whatever floor space is available. Like old time vaudevillians, their
shows consist of dance routines, a bit of comedy that leads up to the big
event of the evening - a strip show. The gawking audience is all men – looking
for a minor thrill in their humdrum lives.
There is no joy in this troupe – just a group of women hoping to make
some money before their looks have vanished. Perhaps at one time these women
had dreams of being in show business, dreams of making it to the top – but
now they just grind out one day after another. Days are filled with internal
acrimony and gossip, the nights with the show – and after the show perhaps
they have to perform a “favor” for the theater owner.
Kung fu veteran Ku Feng runs the troupe and among the women is Sylvia Chang.
Sylvia’s older sister (Chang Hsiao-yen) has brought her into the business
and is pushing her into bigger and better roles – the solo dancer – but as
Sylvia looks around her at the crumbling sad lives of the women, all she
wants to do is get out. But her sibling loyalty makes this a difficult choice
to make.
Though a part of you has to respect such an unyieldingly realistic
film – no star is born here sort of material – the continuously downbeat
story and the constant loud tirades of the older sister make it heavy and
eventually unpleasant going. As a side note – here is yet another famous
and highly respected Hong Kong actress (Sylvia) involved in a mud-wrestling
match – the other being of course Maggie Cheung in Paper Marriage. Sylvia
– a terrific singer with all her other talents – also performs two songs.
