What the Mountain Silently Speaks to Us: The Perspective of/from the Mountain in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness

Shinji Ohno

Independent Researcher

Abstract: As a protagonist’s hearing disability shows, the theme of silence is important in many ways in Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness. Interestingly, the mountain that is a natural backdrop of story seems to be connected with it. This article delineates the silent mountain as a symbolic presence beyond “cultural relativism” with regard to Global South, postcolonialism, Environmentalism, and contemporary ecocriticism.

Key words: ecocriticism, postcolonialism, eastern-Asian cinema