In Green Island, it could be inferred that Ryan adopted a realistic method to retell
Taiwan’s history. We can perceive that a number of storylines and settings in Green Island correspond to the real historical events and sites. For example, at the very beginning of the novel, Ryan reproduced the scene of the confiscation of contraband cigarettes. Ryan first marked the exact flashpoint: Tian-ma Teahouse, and then vividly delineated how the Monopoly Bureau agents bullied the cigarette vendor and how they provoked public outrage. As the story progressed, Ryan referred to other representative historical events, such as Kinmen Bombardment in 1958, R.O.C.’s withdrawal from the United Nations in 1971, the severance of diplomatic relations between R.O.C. and the U.S. in 1979, the establishment of diplomatic relations between P.R.C and the U.S. in 1979, the lifting of martial law in 1987, and the SARS outbreak in 2003. In addition to the retelling of historical happenings, Ryan based the characterization of Jia Bao on historical personages’ life stories. As Ryan wrote in the acknowledgements of Green Island, “for Jia Bao’s storyline, I drew on the
experiences of Peng Ming-min,25 Henry Liu, and Chen Wen-cheng to understand the various legal and extralegal mechanisms the KMT government used to control its challengers” (384). From my perspective, although Green Island is a fictional text, the novel can be regarded as a realistic reproduction of Taiwan’s White Terror history because the plots and settings in the novel mirror the real historical figures, events, and sites.
Compared with Green Island, Detention adopted a relatively symbolic method to represent Taiwan’s White Terror history. In terms of its geographical setting, the story inside the film took place in the deserted Greenwood High School campus, which is a
25 Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) was one of the draftsmen of the famous manifesto: A Declaration of Formosan Self-salvation (台灣自救運動宣言) which promoted democracy and independence for Taiwan. Peng later became the DPP’s candidate for the first democratic presidential election in 1996.
About Liu and Chen, please see footnotes 12 and 13 in chapter 2.
fictional place designed by the game developer Red Candle Games. Greenwood High School does not refer to any exact historical location.
In addition to the setting, it is difficult for audience to link the storylines of Detention to any specific historical events. Some reviewers stated that the film recalled the Keelung High School Incident (基隆中學事件).26 However, closer investigations reveal distinctions between the film story and the incident. Detention was set in 1962 during the martial law period. Most characters in the film were arrested because they read banned books, such as Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore and Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev. Nevertheless, the Keelung High School Incident took place in 1949 and 1950. During the incident, the headmaster of the Keelung High School Chung Hao-tung (鍾浩東), the editor Lan Ming-gu (藍明谷), and other suspects were arrested and executed for being involved in the underground publication of Kuangming News (光明報) to disseminate communist propagandas.
Obviously Hsu did not realistically reproduce the Keelung High School Incident in the film. Hsu might be inspired by the incident as a reference, but he set up a new time, space and storyline in Detention.
Moreover, instead of precisely naming the violence-imposer, like Ryan did in Green Island,27 I infer that Hsu adopted a more implicit and symbolic way. Take those who tortured Wei for example: Hsu hid the torturers’ faces off camera (see fig.1).
26 Please see Wu (吳兆熊), Lin (林雨蒼), and Peng (彭紹宇).
27 In Green Island, Ryan made it clear that the Chinese Nationalist government, soldiers, secret agents, and the Garrison Command were the source of violence during the White Terror period.
Fig. 1. Hsu hid the torturers’ faces, only showing their lower bodies, Detention (0:06:57, 01:28:38).
Some may argue that the military instructor Bai in the film embodied the Chinese Nationalist government because he wore a military cap with the KMT party emblem. I agree that instructor Bai could be taken as an agent of the Chinese
Nationalist government. Nevertheless, in an intriguing scene toward the end of the film, when the instructor Bai asked Fang whether she was sheltering the insurgents, the front lighting projects behind Bai multiple black shadows (see fig. 2). All of a sudden, behind Bai one saw at least five huge black shadowy figures as if some larger and unspecified power is operating behind Bai. A scene like this reminds audience in a symbolic way that there were unrecognizable persecutors behind Bai.
Fig. 2. Hsu utilized the black shadows to refer to the unidentifiable oppressors behind instructor Bai, Detention (01:23:47).
In addition to the black shadows behind Bai, I contend that Hsu created an
enormous zombie-like figure to symbolically represent the state apparatus.28 In the spooky labyrinthine Greenwood High School campus, the protagonists Fang and Wei were often chased by the zombie-like figure which held a lantern and wore shabby military cap and uniform (see fig. 3). The zombie-like figure could be construed as a symbolic representation of the RSAs and ISAs. It monotonously repeated the White Terror propaganda slogans to brainwash the characters and covered over the head of whoever being captured a gunnysack, as such alluding to the suppression and restriction of the freedom of thought. Besides, the zombie-like figure did not have clear facial features. It skulked around everywhere and appeared mysteriously. In this way it resembled the ISAs which were imperceptible and pervasive in people’s daily life.
Fig. 3. Hsu symbolically represented the state apparatus by creating an enormous zombie-like figure, Detention (00:37:44).
From my perspective, Hsu’s symbolic representation of the persecutors makes the target of criticism in Detention unclear. As the zombie-like figure could refer not
28 In his essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” Louis Althusser classified state apparatuses into two types: Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). RSAs have the power to force people to behave according to the rules of the state, such as the government, the administration, the army, the police, the courts, the prisons, etc. ISAs are the institutions that generate and disseminate ideologies for people to
internalize and behave in accordance with. ISAs include churches, parties, trade unions, families, schools, newspapers, and cultural ventures, etc.
only to the Chinese Nationalist government during the White Terror period but also to other totalitarian systems at present or in the future, the film’s audience is given a larger room to reflect on the pervasive terror imposed by any totalitarian regime.