Seven Days in Heaven (父後七日)

Seven Days in Heaven (父後七日) is my third film on Easter Saturday. After two very good films earlier the same day, this one does seem a bit disorganized and less intensive. It is a light-hearted romp over one of the most persistent customs of the Chinese people: the rites surrounding the death of one's father. It is co-scripted in mandarin and Fujianese and co-directed by Essay Liu ( 劉梓潔) and Wang Yu Lin (王育麟) of Taiwan.

Taiwan is a very peculiar part of China . As in all parts of a country which has been separated in history from its hinterland for prolonged periods, the traditions of the old country are often most slavishly adhered to. In this film Liu and Wang took fresh look at this ancient tradition from the point of view of the values of present day Taiwanese society but from a humorous angle. And it is hilarious. But I suspect that the directors' minds are divided. They may also want to portray some of the deeper underlying emotions too. But the two may not go well together. Perhaps they were trying to imitate Charlie Chaplin: to show the tears behind the laughter.

The film opened with two anxious faces in front of a hospital bed. They were those of a son and a daughter. They were obviously both concerned and helpless. But however they felt, it was too late. The doctor asked if it was OK to switch off the life support machine and pronounce their father's death at 5: 37 a .m. as if there were a choice in the matter! Then the real film began.

We were shown a Taoist priest practising his gait in a yellow ceremonial gown with some written spell words back and front but to the lilting rhythms of the Jewish tune of Hava Naglia. It could not have been more incongruous. This will become a pattern in the film. The movements on the screen of what would otherwise be a most solemn and sad occasion are often accompanied by modern day pop rhythms. We were shown in great details what each stage of the 7 day funeral rites would require. Amongst other things, It requires a professional "mourner", rather like what we read about in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations when at the appropriate moment, the master of ceremony Mr. Pumblechook would give the order: "Pocket handkerchiefs out!". But here, we find the lover of the Taoist priest in a dirty white linen cloak crawling on the ground at a snail’s pace towards the temporary bamboo and plastic sheet public altar, crying a heart rending cry every step of the way, but with a mike around her breast to conserve energy to the intent that that everybody, especially her employer, can hear that she is crying! But we can see that once she reached a soft drink vending machine, she would swiftly press for a can, gulped it down in record time and then continued her ponderous crying journey, as if nothing had happened in the interval! She would later also double up as the leader of the localized version  of the Western mourning band, consisting of 4 old fashioned looking Chinese peasant women playing off key tunes on some cheap western brass trumpets and trombones in a straggling out of step formation. The priority of form over substance been is blindingly obvious. The multi-talented “mourner” would then put on a "cheerleader" uniform, throw her band leader staff high up in the air, complete with big swirls and then catch it as it fell, as if she were leading a "cheer-leader" band across the American football field! The only thing which appeared lacking were teenage girls in brightly colored miniskirts with garlands around their necks!

In different scenes, we were shown how according to the requirements of the Taoist funeral rites, members of the family had to cry or to stop to cry at the appropriate moments with clockwork like pricision: the daughter being asked to "cry" right in the middle of her having a bowl of rice or brushing her teeth.. We see her rush forward to do the relevant "crying" according to the "ineluctable" and "unalterable" timetable in accordance with the “orders” of the Taoist priest . We see that in the hurry, the rice spewing from her mouth like  a fountain of white grains and a stream of white toothpaste foam would dribble down the floor right in front of the coffin from her foam-filled mouth. The moment she was done, her toothbrush would instantly continue its unfinished duty across her mouth!

There was another scene, in which a local district counselor was advised by the erstwhile “mourner” at the funeral dinner to make a "decent" and "impressive" looking offering to the deceased to be placed in front of the public altar on the 7th day when the public funeral rites would be formally completed. The professional lady "mourner" said that she would make sure that the counsellor’s name  would be written in huge characters so that every one would know it was from him. He curtly remarked that it was a funeral, not a wedding celebration! On the day in question, we see a huge tower of softdrink cans with the name of the counsellor written right in its middle. He came. He was led to it by the multi-talented "mourner". But his "reputation" proved shortlived. Because he scrimped on the money, it had an unreliable wheel. The pile tumbled down right before the ceremony was about to begin. The tower tipped over, despite valiant efforts by the workers to hold it in place by nudging it first in one direction and then another. Jets of cold drinks were splashing all over the bodies of the workers as the cans hit the ground in a spectacular collapse!

In an earlier scene, the Taoist priest asked the deceased' son to place something his father most enjoyed during his life so that it may  be offered to him and be burned with his body. His son quickly rushed out. He returned with a girlie magazine with a lurid photo of a scantily clad young lady on its cover and promptly stuffed it between his father's hands. The priest wryly remarked that one could never have enough of that kind of gift in a funeral parlor!

But the directors were not just concerned with the rigidities and absurdities of the long drawn out funeral ceremonies. They also tried to inject a certain human aspect to such funeral rites by showing us scenes in which they attempt to evoke fond memories of the deceased in the mind of the different characters. We were shown snippets of the personal history of each of the characters involved in various stages of the ceremony and learned for example that the Taoist priest did not intend to be such and did so only due to the strange hands of fate and that his real ambition was to be poet! He even recited some of his indifferent compositions to his nephew, who appeared hugely impressed, to the extent that thereafter he became his personal hero. He would then mimic every gesture that he made, including placing two cigarettes in his mouth, lighting both, taking a puff and then offering one of them to the deceased by placing it on the joss stick stand.

We also learned how the deceased made a living as a small time operator of certain local amusement park games involving throwing balls at targets to win prices in the small southern Taiwan town in various flash backs, how he would sing popular songs on a mike, how he would make jokes at the family dinner, how he would still not lose time having a fling with the nurses at the hospital before he died.

I can see that the directors were out not just to make fun of the funeral ceremonies. They may also be trying seriously to show us that all the people involved were flesh and blood human beings, each with his needs, his personal histories, his peculiar idiosyncrasies and his personality. However, I find that the two sides were not completely integrated. The directors wavered between the two conflicting ambitions. Therefore, the film seemed to me a bit unfocused. We had a bit of everything, but nothing really stood out! It is a good film and very remarkable in many ways and certainly very hilarious at places. But to me, somehow something seemed to be lacking: a sense of unity!