Realm of Reverberations
Director: Chen Chieh-jen
2015 /Taiwan/104min /B&W /DCP
2016, Taiwanese Competition, Taiwan International Documentary Festival, Taiwan
2016, Taiwanese Competition, Taiwan International Documentary Festival, Taiwan
Introduction
In 1930, the Japanese
colonial government established the Rakusei (Losheng) Sanatorium for Lepers of
Governor-General of Taiwan in what is now Xinzhuang District. The sanatorium
was created to forcibly house and quarantine sufferers of Hansen's disease and
carry out the government's policies of marriage prohibition or forced
sterilization. Residents were forbidden to leave the grounds, which were
enclosed within a barbed wire fence. In the period immediately following the
Kuomintang government's takeover of Taiwan in 1945, policies at the sanatorium
were left unchanged, but later were gradually relaxed until 1961 when the quarantine
mandate was lifted. Nonetheless, the long-term stigmatization of Hansen's
disease sufferers has made their reintegration into society very difficult.
Influenced by
bureaucrats and local politics, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems
(DORTS) decided in 1994 to move their depot operation in Xinzhuang District to
the property occupied by the Losheng Sanatorium, necessitating the relocation
of the remaining residents. In 2002 DORTS undertook the first phase of the
project by demolishing the sanatorium buildings, thus triggering intense
resistance among residents and various other groups. Consequently the seemingly
endless Losheng Preservation Movement (which continues today), the
resident-organized Losheng Self-Help Organization and the student group Youth
Alliance for Losheng were all born. Furthermore, countless scholars, lawyers,
engineers, documentary filmmakers and others have joined the movement to
preserve the sanatorium and help the residents. In late
2008 the police forcibly cleared the area of residents and their
supporters, after which DORTS immediately erected a fence and started
bulldozing the site. Today, less than 30 percent of the original Losheng
Sanatorium remains.
After more than five
years of demolition, the remains of the sanatorium and massive construction for
the Metro depot look like two enormous wounds sitting side by side, or perhaps
a wound and a symbol of the desire for progress.
Realm of Reverberations comprises four sections, each presenting
perspectives of individuals whose lives have been touched by the Losheng
Sanatorium: old residents (Tree Planters),
a young woman who accompanies sanatorium residents (Keeping Company), a hospice nurse who lived in Mainland China
during the Cultural Revolution (The
Suspended Room), and a fictional political prisoner who travels through
Taiwanese history from the Japanese colonial period to the present (Tracing Forward). They discuss what many
believe to be the inevitable outcome for the Losheng Sanatorium. But is that
really Losheng’s legacy? Other possibilities include serving as a starting
point for multiple dialectics and other imaginings.
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