The mudslides captured in the documentary were in fact triggered by the 7.3-magnitude earthquake which rocked the island Sept. 21, 1999, 10 years before Morakot.
The 2007 film by Huang Shu-mei traces the arduous process residents from Qingshui Village in Nantou County had to go through to rebuild their homes on a new site. The film’s depiction of the story is a telling demonstration of what could happen in post-Morakot reconstruction.
For the earthquake-displaced villagers, the struggle to build new homes turned into a seven-year odyssey. It started with forming a committee to negotiate with various agencies to appropriate land, got bogged down in protracted dealings with a lethargic bureaucracy for permits and funding, and dragged on through attempts to balance their wishes to preserve the environment with social conventions in terms of design and engineering. The villagers watched support for their efforts crumble as local election campaigns set in, and battled against a construction company which pursued the public project only when convenient.
“Formosa Dream, Disrupted” chronicles the villagers’ despair and anger, and the interaction both within the grassroots community and between it and the architects, experts and journalists helping with the project. The institutional factors that delayed the day they could finally move into their new houses are also documented.
This film, along with six others, was screened in a special exhibition at the Tainan-based National Museum of Taiwan Literature to mark the 10th anniversary of the earthquake. The exhibit also features literary works, photography and news archives on the 1999 temblor.
The opening of the exhibition, which participants had looked forward to as an opportunity to share the fruits of post-earthquake reconstruction, was postponed from Aug. 7 to Aug. 15, due to Typhoon Morakot, the worst typhoon to hit the island in 50 years.
“People seemed to have forgotten about the apocalyptic earthquake after all these years, until we had Typhoon Morakot,” said NMTL Director Cheng Pang-chen.
“This exhibition has become both a retrospective of the road we have trod so far and, sadly, a prediction,” Cheng said. “It reminds us that if we don’t remember, through reflection on a spiritual level, we will never learn the appropriate lessons, and more tragedies will happen in the future.”
The earthquake documentaries come mostly from Full Shot Foundation. Shortly after the earthquake, FSF founder Wu Yi-feng organized a 12-member team to document the lives and struggles of people stricken by the major earthquake in the counties of Taichung and Nantou. The result is the series of films in the exhibition, including Wu’s “Life,” Chen Liang-feng’s “Three Fork Village” and Kuo Shiao-yun’s “Taste of Plum.”
Their works are the fruit of long-term engagement. “Formosa Dream, Disrupted,” for example, took Huang eight years to complete. The 145-minute documentary was edited from 150 hours of footage. At one point, the filmmaker, perturbed by unresponsive officials and lack of progress on the neighborhood reconstruction project, sent an edited excerpt from the unfinished film to higher-ranking officials, appealing on behalf of the Qingshui villagers for more effective government assistance. It worked, and the episode was included in the film.
“People who lost the roofs over their heads were eager to rebuild their homes and lives, yet it was never easy,” Huang said. As the issue of village relocation has been raised again in the aftermath of Morakot, the words of Qingshui villagers in response to all the difficulties they have met in the long years of rebuilding mirror the problems to be confronted again today, the director said.
“The political factors involved in the reconstruction process need thorough examination before the same types of problems obstruct any future post-disaster rehabilitation efforts,” Huang said.
“Road,” a poem by Du Ye, collected in the exhibition’s program booklet, hints at the dark side of reconstruction:
Next to building after building collapsed face-up,
Lies scattered one abandoned shoe after another.
North, south, east or west—
There is no way home.
The road sign at the crossroads,
Knocked crooked by the ox beneath the earth,
Points to heaven.
Halfway there some roads
Bite their tongues and commit suicide.
Construction firms and politicians look on and smile,
With their tongues and lies paving the way for their own
Future.
Former Nantou County Magistrate Peng Pai-hsien appreciates the examination of “disaster politics” in the films and literary works included in the exhibition. Recounting his experience of rebuilding Nantou after the earthquake, Peng said Aug. 15 that the natural disaster “shook loose” all kinds of inherent problems—political, economic and historical—in the society.
Election campaigns, for example, had a negative effect on the continuation of reconstruction policies. “The golden years for post-quake reconstruction were wasted in political struggles,” Peng recalled.
The former county chief said that he, like the writers and filmmakers featured in the exhibition, kept detailed records concerning rescue, resettlement and reconstruction efforts and policymaking following the earthquake.
Peng said these documents could help mitigate the impact of natural disasters if they are put to good use. From basic recording to interpretation in films and literature, he stressed, these case histories can help build up a culture that reflects upon history, remembers and learns from it.
“We will also learn to rebuild for the greatest public good and from the perspective of the victims and nature, rather than according to the political interests of a few people,” he said. (THN)
Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw