A Dialogue with “Memory” in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Café Lumière(2003)

The chapter analyzes the sense of “Japanese” in the film Café Lumière, in other words, the fact that many of the Japanese audience felt that it was a “Japanese film.” The “Japaneseness” of course did not simply occur at the site of reception but was also embedded as a strategic commodity, produced by multiple Japanese companies: Shôchiku, Asahi Newspaper, Sumitomo Corp., Satellite Theater, and IMAGICA. Hou states in an interview, “The theme of the film had already been decided from the beginning, and I was requested to make a Japanese film.” The chapter views the film as a success in creating a “common sense [kyôtsû-kankaku],” and its oxymoronic aspect—a Taiwan filmmaker’s Japanese film—is one of the film’s attractions. By adapting philosopher Ôhashi Ryôsuke’s concept of “systemic sense,” originated from Aristotle’s “common sense,” the chapter analyzes how the filmmaker made the oxymoron possible.