« Back Online | Main | Necessity Is The Mother Of Final Cuts »
June 27, 2007
A History Of Convalescence
I don't think I've ever managed to make it to a movie in Westwood, LA Film Festival or not, without having to sprint to get there on time. It's not just parking - it's that I always forget to bring cash to pay for parking. So it was that I breathlessly made it into the theater just as I Don't Want To Sleep Alone, the latest from my Tsai Ming Liang, was hitting the screen. I had to watch the first few minutes of the film standing up, waiting for my eyes to adjust so as not to accidentally sit down in someone's lap. As I stood there, leaning against the balustrade and watching Tsai's longstanding leading man Lee Kang-Sheng in one of his typically long shots, I couldn't help but wonder: where does one go after a film like The Wayward Cloud?
The answer, it turns out, is back to Malaysia, where Tsai grew up but has never made a film (typically, the Malaysian government banned the picture in March - and then relented when Tsai agreed to make some trims). Harkening back to the less explicit days of The Hole and What Time Is It There?, the film follows the recovery of two injured men, referred to in the credits as Paralyzed Guy and Homeless Guy. The former is in the hospital, unable to move anything but his eyes, cared for by nurses and his mother. Homeless Guy finds himself in a similar state of disrepair state after being savagely beaten in an alley and rescued by a construction worker who carries him through the streets on a dirty old mattress. The first hour of the film is so aloof and seemingly aimless, even by Tsai's standards, that it's all too easy to miss one of the biggest hints this generally undemonstrative director is giving us by casting Lee as both of the guys.
The disparate elements of the plot gradually begin to fall into cocentric orbit, moving gradually closer to the geographical heart of the picture: an unfinished downtown building, in the foundation of which a deep pool of water has accumulated. Water (or the lack thereof, in the case of The Wayward Cloud) is Tsai's leitmotif, and here it has all been hidden away in the skeletal structure, a fountain of life awaiting discovery. Once again, longing and the need for physical connection are Tsai's overriding themes, and one might ask how many hilariously awkward sex scenes between Lee and his usual costar Chen Siang-Chyi he can get away with before he starts repeating himself. But that's sort of the point, I think: Tsai is one of those directors who has found a way to circumvent traditional modes of progression. He swims ever deeper into the same waters, and his films, familiar as they might be, keep getting richer.
It's worth mentioning, too, that this is his most visually gorgeous work to date, especially in the latter half of the film: the cinematography by Liao Pen-Jung is rich with shadow and fog (so much so that it's almost impossible to make out the details in the online trailer) and the compositions he finds - particularly in the abandoned building - have an almost Escher-like level of complexity to them that demand to be seen on the big screen. Or maybe not; there were a lot of walk-outs during the screening. One man sighed in frustration as he huffed up the aisle, as if he'd given it all he had and just couldn't take it anymore. It takes a while for a film like I Don't Want To Sleep Alone to offer a return on the attention you have to give it: it's as benign and gentle as The Wayward Cloud wasn't, but at the same time there's nothing to yell at the screen about.
After the screening, I caught up with AJ Schnack, who snuck me and my badgeless self into the Red Room for free drinks and a random game of truth or dare with Analog Days producer Jenifer Shahin. Then we all headed over to see Join Us, Ondi Timoner's troubling (in more ways than one) follow-up to the amazing DIG! It was a great jolt of festival fun amidst the solitary life of the mind I've been living lately, and I'm hoping to make it out to LAFF to see a few more things before Saturday - although not the big Transformers premiere tonight. When I left last night, construction crews were busy doing something major to the Westwood Village. Probably turning it into a giant robot. Which would be pretty cool, actually.
Posted by David Lowery at June 27, 2007 01:50 PM