The Cinematheque

“[A] gorgeous … elegiac comedy … [In Autumn Moon,] one senses that a way of life is being inexorably washed out to sea with nothing to replace it.”

Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Autumn Moon, winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno, is arguably Clara Law’s chef d’oeuvre. It is the film that vaulted her to international attention—further legitimizing a second Hong Kong New Wave in the process—and stands as one of her and partner Eddie Fong’s most cogent meditations on the destabilizing nature of cultural identity. In the emptied-out streets of Hong Kong, its exodus portending the approaching PRC takeover, left-behind schoolgirl Pui Wai (Li Pui Wai) rooms with her elderly grandmother and awaits her immigration to Canada to join her parents. Tourist Tokio (Mystery Train​’s Nagase Masatoshi), a melancholic Japanese twentysomething, wanders the city in search of local cuisine and meaningless sex, unable to shake the numbness of existence. Upon meeting, a tender, platonic relationship blossoms between the language-barriered youngsters, whose liminal place in the world reflects the director’s own misgivings on the whereabouts of home. Law and Fong would move to Australia soon after.

In Cantonese, English, and Japanese with English subtitles

Virtual Q&A with Clara Law and Eddie Fong on January 16.

“Autumn Moon possesses a more benevolent heart. It may well be a study in postmodern angst but Autumn Moon​’s contemplations on the pitfalls of travel and migration endow it with soul.”

Stephen Teo, Senses of Cinema