• Over the years (this is his 10th feature)- Ming-liang Tsai seems to have crystalized his style. The camera is almost always static (a few slow pans here and there), long takes, silence (I bet the “screenplay” here if there is one is no more than a few pages long and we’re over 2 hours here). There is rain –I believe this connects not only to the melancholic mood—but a sort of end of days biblical parable or Armageddon (there’s a story here about the house crying).
  • An impressive formal work– Apichatpong Weerasethakul it a good comparison. I feel like the comparisons to Ozu are a bit lazy just because it is a static camera.
  • Opens with a four minute take of kids sleeping with a black background– unspecial

Opens with a four minute take of kids sleeping with a black background– unspecial

  • This is more grounded in realism than Ming-liang Tsai’s other films—this is about a homeless (or close) family, an alcoholic father and his two children. Long takes of them washing in the public washroom. We have multiple scenes of people urinating which I think is a not to realism. No more technology induced ennui or apathy. He works outdoors in a whipping wind/rain holding advertising signs getting his soul crushed. They show the advertising sign five times and the last time in close-up with “anger in my hair stands on end”

Long takes of them washing in the public washroom. We have multiple scenes of people urinating which I think is a not to realism. No more technology induced ennui or apathy. He works outdoors in a whipping wind/rain holding advertising signs getting his soul crushed

  • We’re an hour in without breathtaking compositions. There’s a long scene of a sad man eating a meal in close-up. Or destroying a cabbage.
  • At 64 minutes there’s a great shot reflecting off the puddle—neon scene. But Ming-liang Tsai moves past it quickly- there’s no prolonged composition hold here like many of his other shots unfortunately
  • Kang-sheng Lee is very good here in the lead. His pained face is a canvass for pain and self-loathing.
  • Like all of us works- Ming-liang Tsai puts this all in an almost biblical amount of rain
  • The second to last shot is a 13 minute silent shot of the two lead actors looking out one behind the other sort of. It isn’t great.
  • The final shot is a stunner- much like The River– ending on a high note. Here we have a mural shot for the last six minutes

The final shot is a stunner- much like The River– ending on a high note. Here we have a mural shot for the last six minutes

  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 2013. I hate comparing auteurs—but when so much of what Ming-liang Tsai does is shared by Roy Andersson—it is hard not to see the vast difference in the strength of the compositions