CHASING THE FILM SPIRIT: FIVE FROM TSAI MING-LIANG
IN THEATER AND AT HOME THROUGH MARCH 26
Five modern classics from Tsai Ming-liang, haunted by the ghosts and portents of a culture in flux.
in theater
GOODBYE, DRAGON INN
TSAI MING-LIANG / 2003 / 82min / DCP
The Fu-Ho Grand, a movie palace in Taipei, is closing its doors. Its valedictory screening: King Hu’s 1967 wuxia epic Dragon Inn, playing to a motley smattering of spectators, including two stars of Hu’s original opus, Miao Tien and Shih Chun, watching their younger selves with tears in their eyes. Developing the slyest, most delicate of character arcs involving a lovelorn usherette, a Japanese tourist cruising for companionship, and an oblivious projectionist played by Lee Kang-sheng, Tsai crafts a film both powerfully plangent and deadpan funny. The sense that moviegoing as a communal experience is slipping away takes on a profound and painful resonance in Goodbye, Dragon Inn, a film too multifaceted to reduce to a simple valentine to the age of pre-VOD cinephilia.
PLAYING AT METROGRAPH THROUGH MARCH 20
VIVE L'AMOUR
TSAI MING-LIANG / 1994 / 118min / DCP
Tsai’s second theatrical feature drew understandable comparisons to Antonioni’s chilly studies in urban ennui on its initial release, but this bizarre love triangle—Chen Chao-jung and Yang Kuei-mei meet for illicit rendezvous in an “empty” apartment in Taipei where, unbeknownst to them, a depressive Lee Kang-sheng is hiding out—found the Taiwanese master developing his own, utterly distinct style, distinguished by elegantly composed static takes, perverse deadpan comedy, and lovelorn longing. A disarmingly funny masterclass in cinematic economy and, in its final scene in the then-unfinished Daan Forest Park, utterly devastating.