Elegies
When Ann Hui was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival three years ago and presented the star-studded Love After Love (2020), it was hard to imagine then Hui’s next film: Elegies, a documentary on the largely overlooked topic of Hong Kong poetry.
Although Hui has stated that she is revisiting an earlier interest in poetry, the English title, Elegies, which differs from the Chinese title meaning ‘poetry’, hints at a deeper meaning. Hsi Hsi and Yesi, two poets whose work is covered in the documentary, have already passed away, while Huang Canran and Liu Waitong, the two poets central to the film, have since left Hong Kong. Although the life of a poet in Hong Kong is a difficult one, the pursuit of distinctly modern, local identity in Hong Kong poetry has been a remarkable success. In 1997, Hui’s documentary As Time Goes By reflected on both the personal and the historical; now, as Hong Kong faces another historical transition, the release of Elegies seems far from coincidental. As we see in Elegies, poetry reflects our faith and aspirations.
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