remembering laichan

Goh Laichan (1962–2025) [FOTOS: laichan_official/Instagram, Freestate Productions; Courtesy of Channel NewsAsia]

a belated remembrance: i interviewed fashion designer Goh Laichan at his boutique for a magazine about 20 years ago, around the time of Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love. amid the cheongsam hype, he stood out to me for quietly continuing, in a fabulous hat, an East Asian tradition with his modern grace, tailoring effortless and comfy spins on the mandarin gown. we never stayed in touch, but these memories (and how i wanted to fit into LAICHAN's “man-pao”) came flooding back in 2017 when i watched 邓宝翠 Eva Tang's short《柳影袈裟》("The Veiled Willow"), as part of Royston Tan's anthology 667, for which Mr. Goh was the costume designer. in a way only Eva can, the film gloriously celebrated myriad facets of Cantonese culture: food, humour, love, language, music, repression, set in an era when the Speak Mandarin Campaign was sewing up expression.

Mr. Goh passed away in April at 62 years old—quietly, of course. Eva has kindly made available her short, here, for streaming for 100 days, the traditional mourning period. do try to watch it and look out for the veteran couturier's creations at every turn. there'll never be another quite like Laichan.

Still from Eva Tang, 《柳影袈裟》("The Veiled Willow"), 2017

PS: Eva's docu《從維多利亞街到宏茂桥》 (From Victoria Street to Ang Mo Kio), one of my faves of 2019, leaves streaming on Netflix today!

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the long day closes

Terence Davies was easily “Britain's greatest living film director,” as the Evening Standard recognised: from his transcendental trilogy of shorts, to his pointilist, absolutely essential pair of debut features, interrogating familial memory, religion and sexuality, and the adolescent self, plus his lyrical documentary on his city, Liverpool; from, more recently, his adaptations of classic novels and plays, which stick out in time, to his still highly personal biopics of poets. his passing, at 77, aches as hard as Abbas Kiarostami's (who was 76), because they both still had so much more to share—Davies just released a short film last month, entitled "Passing Time".

i first watched his cinema, on DVD, at 18 and i still think of certain fades, musical sequences, and even wallpaper patterns, half a life later. he was a true auteur; pure poetry and passionate pain on screen. he arrived without precedence and leaves without a successor. his epitaph quotes Horace: “Pulvis et Umbra Sumus” (“We are but dust and shadows”). vale, maestro.

'The Long Day Closes,' 1992

taipei story

in appreciation of 楊德昌 Edward Yang who, over seven and a quarter films i experienced during a solitary and angry youth, taught me that: everyday life can be the stuff of high art, even sensational subjects should be quietly observed, epic tales must be told through the smallest details, women are strong and men weak (but both foolish), ‘80s to ‘90s Taiwan fashion was the bomb, you can make primarily Western influences all your own, beauty and transcendence can derive from work limitations and commercial/national rejection, human relations (especially within the family and between lovers, of adolescence) are at the heart of what we do, and that you can be a bespectacled, polymathic, rake thin utter nerd and still land 蔡琴 Tsai Chin as your partner.

thank you to fellow filmmaker Steve Chen, from whose photos i was first alerted to this retrospective exhibition at 臺北市立美術館 Taipei Fine Arts Museum (and for letting me crash at his!). it’s a privilege to peek behind the scenes at Yang’s obsessive archive to appreciate how much anal-retentive work and collaboration goes into living, then making art of life, somehow making a living off art, and hopefully producing eternal life and light. pure joy and inspiration!

- 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑚𝑖𝑥𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠. 𝑀𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝑤𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚.

- 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠? 𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒!

- 𝑀𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠, "𝑊𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠."

- 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑏𝑒?

- 𝐼𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑑𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒.

— 楊德昌 Edward Yang, 一一 (Yi Yi: A One and A Two), 2000