Some Environmental Concerns in the Films of Tsai Ming Liang
Director: Tsai Ming Liang
Duration: 00:45:42; Aspect Ratio: 1.779:1; Hue: 65.187; Saturation: 0.033; Lightness: 0.172; Volume: 0.130; Cuts per Minute: 1.225
Summary: Notes on objects, spaces and people in the films of Tsai Ming Liang.
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Hēi yǎn quān )(2006)
With this film, Tsai shifts location to Kuala Lumpur. In the scene, we see a group of men who are carrying a bed they have picked up from the garbage and a mauled Lee Kang Sheng who plays a man who cannot talk or, most possibly, who does not want to talk. The Pudu prison which forms the backdrop of the scene is located in a surreally grainy part of the city, a part most taxis do not want to go to (at least they didnt want to in 2009). In June 2010, the eastern wall of the prison (seen here) was demolished by the government for a road widening project.
Vive L'Amour ( Ai qing wan sui) (1994)
The scene is one of free play. Like a hamster on a lighted wheel.
The River ( He liu) (1997)
In this film, the duration of the long takes is much shorter than his other films. There is even a moment where a bumbling camera awkwardly follows Hsiao Kang down the stairs- something Tsai's usually static camera doesn't do.
The River (He liu) (1997)
Shohei Imamura plays with strange fantasies about water in his film Warm Water Under a Red Bridge. Even the Japanese cadmium poisoning incident finds place in the chain of events that surround the protagonist's unique ejaculatory power.She ceases to ejaculate insane amounts of water when she starts feeling "alright" or is being "cured" by care.
In a similar fashion, the bed in I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, the fish tank in What Time is It There? and the flooding room in various levels of wear and tear are taken care of (sometimes out of exasperation, but there is always some love). It is not the sort of care that stems out of an instinct to possess. Objects are adopted, picked up, taken care of.
Rebels of the Neon God (Qing Shao Nian Nuo Zha) (1993)
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Hēi yǎn quān )(2006)
Visage (2009)
The Hole (Dong) (1998)
Goodbye Dragon Inn (Bu san) (2003)
What Time Is It There? ( Ni na bian ji dian) ( 2001)
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Hēi yǎn quān), 2006
A group of passers-by with masks on gather around a television screen- a provisional cinema hall. In goodbye dragon inn, tsai engages, rather earnestly, with the old idea of the death of the cinema hall experience. Here, he makes amends for the recourse to nostalgia. In i dont want to sleep alone, the radio, the television, the skywalk are all reservoirs of images.
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Rebels of the Neon God (Qing Shao Nian Nuo Zha) (1993)
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Hēi yǎn quān )(2006)
Goodbye Dragon inn (Bu san) (2003)
The sounds in the film are patiently allowed to reach lucidity- the sounds of the whirring projector, the limping woman's footsteps, and the last reel of the wuxia film.
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