Ming-liang Tsai

[jake]

Ming-liang Tsai (1957- )



1. Ni neibian jidian (2001)
2. Tian bian yi duo yun (2005)
3. Tianqiao bu jianle (2002)
4. Dong (1998)

Kino, what do you think of Dong/The Hole?

[RNL]

I'm so unbelievably psyched to see I Don't Want to Sleep Alone. It's out on DVD now, but I'm holding off - I think I may be able to see it on the big screen in January.

Meanwhile I have his first three features to get through, though none of them have very good video quality.

[Kino]

wetdog said:

3. The River (1997) 9/10

Liked the whole body sicknesss business in The River?

[RNL]

Quite!

It's also his darkest, bleakest and most visually abstract film. The sex scenes are tragic and beautiful and angry all at once.

And I cannot express how much I adored the technique of symbolically thematizing the film upfront with Xiao-kang's participation in the film production, standing in for a dummy, playing a corpse. Utter genius.

[RNL]

You didn't rate it so highly, if I recall.

[Kino]

Yea, I don't think I was that personally fond of it; I admire all of his work, though, if coldly when it comes to The River.

I wish I could see a better print of it especially b/c of the small pool of red in the enveloping darkness of the latter sex scene.

SPOILER

What I don't get, though, is the father not figuring out it was his son during the act especially w/ the son's neck and upper body twitches. I mean they were obviously in close contact.

END SPOILER

BTW, I just saw a still of the watermelon's use in The Wayward Cloud. Holy Shit.

[Kino]

wetdog said:

3. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006) 9/10

What did you like about it?

The final shot is exquisite, huh? An all-time classic for me. Can't deny the butterfly. Lovely.

Other than that, though, I was underwhelmed. I appreciate the portrayal of ethnic interaction in contemporary Malaysia. It just felt like the same ol' same ol' from Tsai.

[RNL]

No, I don't think so. I mean, yeah, the same, but still searching. It's his most elliptical and mysterious plot yet (involving doppelgängers, simply credited as Homeless Man and Paralysed Man), and thematically it's even darker and more agonised than The River - I suppose the body-emphasis and the disease, for the first time carrying some metaphysical symbolism (along with the usual; waterwaterwater, pretty trinkets, ironic pop music, food, porn, radio news), resonated immediately with me in a way it mightn't have with you. This, I think, also marks his perfection of his staple urban landscape metaphor. Notice the lack of wide shots of the city, it's all dark, all small interiors and tight exteriors, as paralysed visually/spatially as Paralysed Man is bodily; the city's becoming more abstract as his emotional focus becomes more ineffable. I think this was a big stride forward, possibly his best film.

[Kino]

Thanks for taking the time. Great analysis. Wish I could return your effort w/ an analysis of my own, but I got nothing.

I'll keep it in mind when I try it again. I wanted to like the movie so much.

[RNL]

Remember the shot in What Time Is It There? from the top of the skyscraper, the scene where Hsiao-kang is changing the clockface on the other building to Paris time with a big pole?

That's as wide a shot of the city as you could get without going aerial. I thought the contrast between that kind of bright, open representation of the city and the consistently stifled, gutter-level imagery of his latest was interesting. That and the shift from naturalistic colours to thick, murky browns.

Also, while you might say it's about loneliness and alienation again, it actually feels to me, probably because it's much more abstract than his others, that it's about something deeper and more essential than that. It's maybe no longer "look how unhappy are the city's inhabitants", but now nihilistic to the point of arguing the inescapable existential agony of waking life, with respite only in sleep (/death); hence the final blissful image - and the image that immediately precedes that: a close-up of Paralysed Man's tortured eyes (I believe the title actually translates as "Dark Eye Socket").

[Capo]

1. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone 2006

[RNL]

Word.

[Capo]

It's wonderfully weird; I got a major interruption half-way through, and I feel as if I've chosen the wrong window through which to enter his work, but even so, I'm rather warming to these subtle, "loose" narratives.

[Capo]

Many images are lingering from the above film. The one where the nurse is washing the comatosed guy's expressionless face; when the impromptu "nurse" is dressing the guy he's taking care of in his home, with the subtle, distant ambience from outside; that mattress-carrying scene early on, with the guys carrying it over the road from the extreme distance; the masturbation-in-the-alley scene; the entire shift in tone as it goes on, with the pollution/sickness developing further; that shot from the top of the stairs with the guy in the doorway and the music playing from the radio; those recurring little bags of orange and green liquid (they look so refreshing!); the butterfly scene; fishing in the stagnant water of a flooded, abandoned building; the final shot.

I need to see it again. I'm going to place it back on my rental queue.

[RNL]

Do you have any more of his stuff on there?

[Capo]

Just The Wayward Cloud.

The Hole, What Time Is It There? and Goodbye, Dragon Inn aren't available - all on reserve.

I found that despairing tone of I Don't Want to Sleep Alone extremely powerful. Its abstraction, its distinct scenes but anonymous people (the camera's refusal to move in closer on a lot of them, and their blank expressions when it does). Like I said, I had a major interruption half-way through when I saw it first time round, and its rhythm begs an interruption-free viewing.

I need to write another prose piece for my creative writing unit at uni, and this (and Dumont's Humanity) are influencing me very much in my approach.

[RNL]

Don't watch The Wayward Cloud before What Time Is It There? and The Skywalk Is Gone. It's the third in that series. Seriously don't.

And yeah, Dumont and Tsai are two of my favourites. I really connect with them. They'll both have films at Cannes next year.

[Capo]

I won't. Are the other two on eMule? Hardsubbed? (I'm back home now at any rate; won't be downloading them for another four weeks.)

[RNL]

I haven't seen them hardsubbed, but they're on there, you can just download the subtitle file separately.

[svsg]

I just finished Goodbye Dragon Inn. I might proview it. But I was amused by the 2 minute still shot of the theater. At least the cows moved in Satantango LOL