Bicycle Culture...

My philosophy is, that if it has a bike on the cover, I will try it. It is a sad statement of unchecked consumerism I know, and now you know. I apply it to books, wine, beer, clothing, and other less important things. I realize there may be a 50% chance of the purchase being a flop, but there is a bike on the cover, label, or stretched across the back, so come on. Anyway, when I walked into Video Paradiso last night and saw a bike on the cover of a dvd entitled Island etude, I immediately grabbed it up.

Apparently I do not peruse the foreign film aisles frequently enough, because this film was released in 2007. Filmed in Taiwan, the story follows a young college student who takes a break from his studies in order to ride around the island nation with pack and guitar on his back. Interwoven into his story are the various people, individual and groups, he encounters along the way. The exchange between these people is so compelling, I was easily drawn into the events regardless of having to follow the subtitles. In particular, follow the exchange involving the group of women, laid-off seamstresses and their "tour guide", our hero and his grandfather at a local religious celebration, and near the end, the solo cyclist traveling in the opposite direction around the island. Oh, but then there is also the film troupe, the young rebellious cyclist, the teacher at the school for the deaf... ahh heck, its all good, just use the pause button if you need to get up.

The film provides an interesting and informative look at Chinese (Taiwanese) culture (that's the anthropologist in me coming out), is visually stunning, and poetic. And it involves bikes, numerous bikes.