Thursday, November 12, 2009

Faces of Tsai Ming-liang: Vive L’Amour

For three characters, the unwelcoming urban environment of Taipei is hardly conducive for forging human connections. Their director ought to know. He was a stranger there himself. Born to an ethnic Chinese family in Malaysia, Tsai Ming-liang became the leading director associated with Taiwanese cinema’s “Second New Wave.” That sense of otherness informs much of Tsai’s work, especially his international breakout film, Vive L’Amour, which screens this coming Tuesday at the Asia Society as part of their Faces of Tsai Ming-liang retrospective.

They never talk much, which is a little ironic since they all work in sales, to some extent. May Lin is a real estate broker, who uses the half furnished apartment she is showing for a one night stand with Ah-jung, a common street vendor. Unbeknownst to her, Hsiao-kang has been secretly squatting there. A traveling funeral urn salesman, Hsiao-kang is a sexually ambiguous, suicidal mess.

Hiding under beds and tiptoeing around the apartment to avoid detection, Hsiao-kang’s near misses would be the stuff of screwball comedy in a different film. In Vive though, they are emblematic of his desperation and alienation. Make no mistake, this is not a funny movie. It is about lonely people, whose lives are emptier than the apartment they sort of share.

Uncompromising in the extreme, Tsai largely eschews dialogue throughout Vive. Yet his style remains unyieldingly intimate. There are many wincingly uncomfortably moments throughout the film, but the simplicity and directness of its conclusion perfectly expresses the film’s underlying despair. It truly is the work of a demanding auteur.

Vive’s “roommates,” Lin, Ah-jung, and Hsiao-kang, are played by three frequent Tsai collaborators: Yang Kuei-Mei, Chen Chao-jung, and Lee Kang-sheng, respectively. While Lee gets most of the showy scenes of cross-dressing and an attempted suicide, it is Yang who really lowers the film’s emotional boom. Her haunting work makes the film unforgettable.

About as far from multiplex-popcorn fare as cinema can get while still maintaining a linear sense of plot, Vive is definitely for discriminating cineastes. Yet once viewers acclimate to its deliberate pace, it delivers a real emotional punch. Currently unavailable on DVD, its November 17th screening at the Asia Society offers a rare opportunity to see it on a big screen. The Faces series starts Friday (11/13) and runs through Saturday (11/21), with a free screening of Tsai’s latest film, Face, scheduled for Sunday (11/15).