Review: The Fourth Portrait (Taiwan, 2010)

Image courtesy of Festival del Film Locarno

The Fourth Portrait, directed by Mong-Hong Chung, starts with a very touching scene. Xiang, our protagonist, bears witness of his father’s death in a Taiwan hospital bed. The doctor and nurse leave the ten-year-old boy alone with his dying father and ask him coldly to call them when he finally expires. Xiang puts a napkin on his father’s mouth so he can see that when the napkin stops moving that his father will have passed. The awareness of mind of such a young child to think of that, on such a difficult moment in his life, says everything about the intelligence of the lead character in this movie.

Xiang has no other family taking care of him. In the following scenes he walks around the Taiwan countryside with menacing plumes of toxic smoke coming out of mega factories in the background, eating his meals at home in total solitude. He also draws at night; we only see a glimpse of his first portrait.

The only contact he makes is with the janitor of his school, who is hard on him but in a good way, at least feeding the boy and giving him advice on life. He calls the man who is not related to him grandfather; this shows how much he misses a normal family.

He still has family though, his mother who hasn’t seen her child since he was seven. She comes to collect Xiang after the death of his father, reluctantly though. When the train they’re on speeds in to the blackness of the tunnel in an ingenious shot, it felt like an omen of doom. This feeling is enhanced by the encounter between Xiang and his stepfather, who chillingly receives him and mouths him off at the very first meal they have together. The director Mong-Hong Chung shows his craft in the color scheme in these scenes. The apartment of his stepfather is dominated by a big fish tank in which many little fish grow, giving the whole place a cool, blue feel that emphasizes the coldness of the stepfather. Chung also uses a warm yellow lamp over the dining table as the family sits to eat to enhance the longing of Xiang for a normal family life.

The second portrait is inspired by another curious character in this film. A petty criminal full of life who makes Xiang even accomplice of his crimes. He’s a bit crazy but seems to be the only one to understand young Xiang. Scenes with Big Gun, as he names himself, are very funny. But he is a bad role model, contrary to the benevolent and wise school janitor.

The narrative gets darker with the arrival of the third portrait, inspired by a dream about his older brother who went missing three years earlier and the discovery of his mother’s profession, when he visits her at “work”. This portrait unchains a series of macabre incidents and ultimately will lead to a fourth portrait.

Chung stated in an interview about the film that he always toyed with the idea about making a movie about a child during a few months in it’s life, because he’s fascinated with the vast imagination of children. He pulls it off, and not only that, the story is also an allegory of modern Taiwan (as the director noted in an Q and A after screening) where the society is in turmoil while in search of its identity, much like the protagonist. This sense of alienation is also conveyed in the depiction of the present day Taiwan. Nature is rapidly being taken over by industrialization and urbanization. It must also be said that the kid actor, Xiao-Hai Bi, does a fantastic job of conveying an innocent but troubled youth.

I really got involved in the movie by its delicate touch and the storyline that propels one to that fourth portrait, that very important fourth portrait. The Fourth Portrait ends as it began: touching. I got the chance to shake hands with Mong-Hong Chung and heard myself saying, “Great movie, thanks”.

Rating: ***