Looks like we’re not done with the summer flicks yet! A film friend of mine shared his summer watch list with me, and it had Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A Summer at Grandpa’s on it. So I thought, “Hey, I’ll steal that for C&C!” Fun little trivia: it’s been said (though not confirmed as far as I’m aware) that this film was the inspiration for Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro. Lots of overlap for sure! Okay, let’s get to gramp’s stat!
The Quick Gist
A Summer at Grandpa’s (1984) is a coming-of-age film about a brother and sister who spend a pivotal summer at their grandpa’s country house while their sick mother remains in critical care at a hospital back in Taipei.
A Summer at Grandpa’s
In this early Hou Hsiao-Hsien film, Tung-Tung and his little sister Ting-Ting, leave the big city of Taipei for the summer to visit their grandpa’s house in the countryside. Where Hou’s film from two years prior, The Green, Green Grass of Home — a pleasant heartwarming little flick — shows school kids in the countryside going about their daily lives — A Summer at Grandpa’s is what these kids might do during their summer break. Which honestly, is not much different than what they do when school is in session. They play in the river, run around town, get into trouble — you know, enjoy the simple things in life!
But unlike The Green, Green Grass of Home, this film is told from the perspective of the children, primarily Tung-Tung, who is at the age where he’s starting to understand what’s going on around him a little better. The possibility of losing his mother weighs on him, even if he can’t fully grasp the seriousness. He witnesses the more complicated lives of the adults around him, even if he doesn’t really get it. Because there are still things in life that are just too big to understand. While he may not be able to fully grasp everything, he can still feel it. We see the way this manifests in the letters he writes to his mother and father back home:
So many things happen each day that I can’t keep track. I’ll tell you if they come back to my mind. I feel depressed today. I’ll stop for now.
And like Tung-Tung, who is able to understand some, but not all, of what’s going on, we too are sometimes left trying to figure things out. Hou holds back all the specifics, placing us in that same childlike perspective, foregrounding our feelings more than the facts. Along with some feelings of uncertainty – of what the future might hold – this emphasis on perspective also creates a strong sense of melancholy, a yearning, an ever-present nostalgia, as if we’re witnessing a memory. It’s a movie that can lull you pleasantly to sleep, in that special Kiarostami kind of way. It’s like the rhythm of a slow summer day. Those special ones from your youth.
Hou also understands that it’s not so easy being a kid, especially one that’s on the verge of leaving childhood. Adults don’t take you seriously, the world feels big and confusing, and you’re left to figure it all out on your own. But what’s so great about A Summer at Grandpa’s is the way in which Hou treats the children as individuals, worthy of their own attention. He isn’t condescending or patronizing. Hou gets it.
A summer is a lifetime for kids. Huge changes happen. You’re not the same person you are when you leave school and return three months later. The stories you tell your friends back at home, the memories you make with the new pals you’ve found, they all feel so huge; so big and monumental. A Summer at Grandpa’s encapsulates all that and more.
With that, I hope you enjoy this touching film. I sure did!
Password to watch on the site: summerwithgramps
Or request access to the Plex server here for best quality.
Want to chat about the movie with fellow film freaks? Then check out the Discord!