Reseñas de la crítica

A beautifully becalmed movie... [Tsai] has made something exquisite and rare: an elegiac, autumnal work that also feels like an artistic breakthrough. It’s a tale of profound isolation and thrilling connection, alert and alive and gorgeously sensual even as every moment carries a bittersweet reminder of time’s inexorable passage.

To enjoy “Days,” you have commit to its earthy dream logic. It is an extraordinary movie; it is not an easy sit... “Days” is beautiful; it radiates the sort of low-key intensity and punch-drunk wooziness that can become intoxicating, if you pay close enough attention.

The movie’s two final shots, in which its performers are now miraculously rendered as fully human, are among the most striking evocations of the quiet anguish of loneliness that any form of cinema can offer.

The beauty of Tsai’s approach, a taste worth acquiring, is the way he builds empathy for his characters by pulling us into their geographic, temporal, and by extension emotional space. Every static, carefully composed shot becomes an invitation to step into their lives.

“Days” becomes such a resonant addition to Tsai’s exhumed body of work because the filmmaker recognizes and embraces that uncharacteristically sentimental undertow; the last 30 minutes of this (relatively short) movie reward viewers who’ve spent the previous 90 minutes searching — reaching — for a souvenir they might be able to take away from it.

What is surprising is that, despite the marginal narrative, ["Days"] is oddly less austere than some of [Tsai's] other work, even if the approach is the opposite... Tsai Ming-liang’s Days might not be for everyone. It’s probably not the best starter film for those uninitiated to his work. But it’s a compelling piece that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Like all of Tsai’s films, ["Days"] communicates feelings of loneliness and alienation inherent to the human condition; but perhaps more than any other, it revels in the corporeality of Tsai’s performers, finding delicate mystery in even the most banal actions.

The most intimate and touching Tsai film in years... Portraying sexual intimacy and urban loneliness are not new territories for Tsai, but his acknowledgement that beauty is fleeting is something new in his oeuvre. This nearly silent film is both melancholic and tender. It's a deeply philosophical examination on human connections and the fleeting beauty of life.

“Days” is the Taiwanese filmmaker’s first feature in seven years, and does not deviate from his minimalist style – so much so that it is, in many ways, something less like conventional viewing and more like meditation... Yet these devices, which could prove distancing or even alienating, have the opposite effect; the mind sharpens while watching. The active viewer pays more attention, alert, peering for flickers of emotion in the faces, or changes on the frames’ edges.

Days is a small, modest film, but this shot is precisely blocked and art-directed, with warm light in the foreground and cool fluorescent in the back—a delightful reminder that Tsai remains a master of traditional film form.

Tsai once again strips cinema to its essence.

Poignant and intensely moving, Days gestures towards a reconciliation with themes of desire and sexuality that have troubled Tsai's cinema since the beginning.