The Harvard Film Archive and the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute are currently making available two newly re-discovered films by Tun-Fei Mou. The films may be seen here and are supported by introductory discussions by Dr. Victor Fan from King’s College London an Wood Lin, Program Director of the Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival.

This podcast is a discussion of I Didn’t Dare Tell You, a modernist melodrama about a young boy seeking a way of paying for an education that his father can’t quite provide. We detect influences of Italian Neo-Realism and the French New Wave, admire its compositions, its look, it’s narrative drive, its melodramatic tone and an extraordinary central performance by the child.  We also discuss how the ending seems a bit bewildering but then learn from Wood Lin’s lecture that the ending was tacked on and that someone who worked on the film saw the recovered print and had never seen that bit before. Something we speculate on in the podcast and are happy to have confirmed. Tun-Fei Mou is a filmmaker to discover and I Didn’t Dare Tell You is a film to talk about.

Our podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

Some images from the film discussed in the podcast may be seen below:

José Arroyo