I think he makes intriguing films; I’ve seen most, but not all of them.
They are a little severe in their minimalism, and I wonder how much more he will be able to do within the confines of his preferred style.
That noted, there are several things I find interesting in his work – the extreme silence (both the lack of dialogue and the reliance upon ambient sound) strikes me as a reinvention (or an attempt at it) of the idea of silent film in a way – he’s obviously not styling himself after silent cinema, but is attempting to transmit a story entirely through visuals and action; and language as the basis of a narrative is fairly irrelevant in his work.
He also has a very casual or flippant take on markers of personal identity – I think his varied gay characters would be the most obvious example, but to some degree, any kind of ‘identity’ that would lead a viewer to think they might be able to ‘know’ a character, to know what kinds of behavior to expect from a character – this is (to varying degrees) subverted, or treated as irrelevant in relation to the kinds of ideas that are really at the heart of his films. When we learn or discover supposedly ‘essential’ qualities of his characters, the same characters (like the dad in The River for example) don’t really conform to what me might expect out of that ‘essential’ quality – it’s basic, trivial information which crops up, and then ceases to mean all that much. There is – in social sciences – the ongoing debate over identity and identity politics – how much is essential, and how much is fluid or mutable, and whether he is conscious of this or not, I think Tsai’s films are often perched in a provocative way right on the dividing line.
I think his stylistic severity definitely has limits, and at least one film – The Hole – I think hints towards a way out, or some other things he could explore – that film has some great, albeit dry and strange humor, and the Grace Chang musical bits are phenomenal, and in that film he handles a narrative that evolves into a sort of contemporary bit of mythology quite well. We shall see where his career leads.
double post
One of my top 5 favorite contemporary directors.
What Time is it There is probably my favorite film of his, but I honestly love all of them.
I’d like to thank you all for giving me another name to discover. One of the joys of this site is getting recommendations from those far more in-the-know than I, and the places to which I’ve recently been led – to Wong Kar Wai’s beautiful work, for one – are rewarding, indeed.
David, The Wayward Cloud is the perfection of what he attempted with The Hole, a combination of what he’s most comfortable with (minimalism) and the most outlandish, insane, and wonderful musical numbers a man could possibly film.
His use of rain is also of note. It’s a constant, driving force in almost all of his films, acting almost as a counter balance to the stillness of his camera, and then it disappears dramatically in Wayward Cloud, to be replaced with Busby Berkeley show stoppers, low pressure shower heads and… water melons.
Ive only seen I Dont Want to Sleep Alone by recommendation from a teacher but I thought it was pretty great. Whoever scouted the locations for that movie was brilliant
The Wayward Cloud is one of the few that I haven’t yet seen, so thanks for the rec on that one, and especially the comments – The Hole is probably my favorite of his, so I’ll have to check it out.
Wayward Cloud is also a sequel to What Time is it There, with the short film The Skywalk is Gone bridging the two, so see those first for the full narrative.
He keeps climbing my ladder of favorite directors. Right now he’s number 2. I don’t think it’s possible for him to beat the Coen brothers at this point, but they are both still making films so we’ll see what the future holds.
TSAI MING LIANG is my favorite filmmaker working right now, period.
Dusty B
what’s your thoughts?