Island Etude

Last week we watched an artistic Taiwanese film called Island Etude. Our professor told us before watching the film that it had an illusive plot. While I agree that the plot seemed to lack a strong direction I believe that this was the point of making this type of movie.
      Island Etude reminds me of independent American films. In the United States the media typically puts films into two groups, mainstream and independent. Mainstream cinema are the big budget, popular films made in Hollywood, whereas independent films are made with a small budget and by a privately owned studio. Independent films seem to be more popular in smaller countries where their is not a huge movie industry. I used to only be familiar with mainstream cinema, but when I studied in Paris I was exposed to French new wave cinema and auteur, all of which are made by independent studios. These movies inadvertently made me discover more independent films in America, and now I watch them more often.
     In my opinion, it is odd that Island Etude was not selected as a nominee for the academy award best foreign film. This is possibly due to the films allusions to Buddhism. You could even call the main character Ming a Buddhist. The fact that the film has an illusive plot is quite common in independent cinema. Perhaps the real reason is the lack of foreigner's understanding of cultural motifs in the film.