“Why are you here?” Xiao An asks Daniel as they sit down to eat in Charles Barratt’s thoughtful, quietly affecting film, Century Egg. It packs a tender wallop.
Daniel has returned to Taiwan for the first time as an adult. His wife is pregnant and eager for his return, but something keeps him wandering the streets. He’s searching for something, but he doesn’t even know what that is yet. After his parents divorced when he was young, he moved to the United States, and his father passed away a few years after his family departed. The film begins with a young Daniel asking his father, “What happens after we die,” but that question isn’t just linked to childhood curiosity. Does Daniel think that part of his identity died when him and his mother moved away from the Taiwan? Can that part be revived?
Xiao An introduces himself to Daniel on a park bench before inviting him to find a good restaurant that serves century egg porridge, a hearty dish that Daniel used to share with his father. They walk around the city, and Xiao An recognizes something in Daniel’s face. Justin Chien’s eyes carry the weight of sadness but also uncertainty as he takes in sights that feel familiar but foreign to him. Barratt captures how Daniel must feel weightless as he floats around this city’s streets, but we cannot shake the feeling that we are tethered to the ground. 4
In a way, Barratt’s film is like a ghost story, as Daniel hunts for recognizable buildings, alleys, and streets. He’s not looking for a person as much as he is trying to track down his identity and lost history. Xiao An seems younger–does Daniel look at him as what could have been? Barratt weaves gently but purposefully.
A bowl of food can be comforting as it unlocks a piece of sense memory. The smallest things can ground us on our ways back home.
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