Tsai Ming-liang: The Hole

Tsai Ming-liang: Fumbling Towards Connection

(Taiwan, 1996)

The Hole stands as one of the best of Tsai Ming-liang's unique case studies of contemporary isolation and alienation in Taipei. Tsai's work is superficially very chilly and philosophically heartbreaking, and this film is no exception, though this film introduces several new elements to his usual style, including a deepening, deadpan sense of humor, a sweeter - if also odd finale, and an ever more elaborate reinvention of antiquated cinematic styles.

Working from slight variations of the theme running through most of his work, The Hole represents a glimpse of urban isolation - in this case between a man and woman who are upstairs/downstairs neighbors - and how varied structures (real or psychological) of modernity wall people off from one another. The two neighbors - urbanist holdouts, of a sort - are the last remaining residents of a public housing project which has otherwise been evacuated (as has much of Taipei) in anticipation of a still-evolving epidemic, described with a sci-fi vagueness that insinuates an apocalyptic magnitude. Here, the woman (the downstairs neighbor) attempts to endure as her apartment is flooded by a prodigious leak from upstairs. A plumber is summoned and he attempts to locate the source of the problem, creating a large hole in the floor, before determining that the problem will be a more time-consuming repair job than he's willing to undetake, given the contextualizing circumstances; he flees, not to be seen again. Already isolated and desperate, the hole linking the two apartments functions first as yet another in a long line of indignities, but soon begins to take on a great symbolic significance.

Tsai's sense of humor, and sense of cinematic history is displayed with a bit more overtness than usual - each of his films have a severely minimalistic quality, constructed of extreme long takes, a very severe minimum of dialogue (Tsai's earlier Vive L'Amour features no dialogue until 30 minutes in, and his later Goodbye Dragon Inn is a showcase of visual storytelling which spins 9 lines of dialogue into a full-length feature film), and a total absence of any sort of musical score. To some degree they are also the cinematic equivalents of a still life - precisely drawn glimpses into characters in an ever more prosperous world who slowly sink into confused, drifting lives. With The Hole, the pallette is slightly more colorful, with jagged and unexpected leaps from reality into phenomenal fantasy. In quirky and highly personal ways, all of Tsai's films reinvent some of the sensibilities of silent film; this film adds to that reworking of cinema's past by also incorporating some of the ideas that power musical films and science fiction, specifically the sense of escapism inherent to both. In something of a commentary on the stresses of contemporary urban life, the severity of a certain strand of sci-fi (think Kubrick) is contrasted against very unexpected musical interludes, whose unreality is very deliberately heightened and exaggerated, to nearly psychedelic levels.

Over the course of this film, something of a relationship evolves between the two neighbors, and the reality is a source of frustration and anger for both, especially the woman. Her rage over the semi-destruction of her residence is aimed at the only visible human target - her upstairs neighbor. Contradictorily, she also happens to find him attractive, and her occasional (and discreetly sexual) daydreams revolving around him are visualized in each of these brilliant, hallucinogenic musical numbers (set to the kinetic and big-band inflected Cantopop of Grace Chang) which explode from the screen in brief bits of sensualistic, surreal romance and humor - quite reminiscent of the big-screen Pennies From Heaven. And for all of the ennui and alienation on display here, Tsai's skewering of late 90s pre-millennial tensions is funny, absurd, and gives this film a very appealing strageness. There's a multitude of readings that could be applied to the film's unadorned title - all of Tsai's films tend to very quietly subvert sexual stereotypes and expected roles, with characters who seem very plainly drawn casually doing the unexpected, and this quality is handled in a very oblique, but also startling fashion here, and the climactic final scene, which develops the theme beautifully, is extraordinary.

Meanwhile Tsai - in typical fashion - also subverts most of the usual expectations or preconceptions Westerners bring to Asian cinema (an absolute absence of any sort of exotic, Orientalistic qualities) with a nonchalant, casually-revealed directness, focusing on both the absurdist tendencies of the human mind, and the most absolute of mundanities. The extreme stillness and quiet in the non-musical sections of this film creates a total demystification of almost everything about his characters, sidestepping backstory or most cultural signifiers, to some degree even sidestepping the limitations of language, in opting to use only a bare minimum of stripped-down dialogue. Taipei itself is not used as a setting in the usual fashion, becoming instead an inscrutable and vague stand-in for the world - this story could be easily recast in any large city, and would express the same overall meaning. This process of stripping away the ephemera, and of considering markers of identity which most would consider to be essential to be essentially mutable and decorative qualities, makes The Hole rather deliberately disorienting, forcing the viewer to engage with isolated characters who are unable to articulate their longings. But this also results in a film which is always fascinating and insightful.

Edward Yang: Yi Yi

Edward Yang's Yi Yi: Showing People What They Do Not Know
(Taiwan, 2000)

Edward Yang's Yi Yi is, in my opinion, one of the few real cinamatic masterpieces of the new millennia.

Yang passed away at the end of June 2007, and his creative presence will be very much missed. Though it's an unfortunate coincidence, one major quality of this film is it's autumnal feel, which unifies an elaborate narrative of Chekhovian richness. Throughout the length of this very captivating film, varied characters engage in backward glances through their lives - which primarily takes the form of self-interrogations of regrets and missed opportunities, and the consequences of ill-informed actions, leading up to a certain resignation and forgiveness. This is perhaps most dramatic in the extremely varied and finely nuanced male characters - nearly all of whom (most dramatically patriarch N.J., sliding into a slow-motion, midlife crisis) are essentially poets or philosophers forced by circumstance into more ordinary types of lives which they may or may not find entirely satisfying, and are now beginning to have second thoughts about.

This is the departure point for the narrative of Yi Yi - as this process of self-interrogation develops, how does one reconcile the momentum inherent in ones' path through life with the contradictory tug of instincts that may be pulling you in a different direction? The success, or lack of success, in negiotiating this crisis of identity is the source of nearly all dramatic tension here, and making this intimate, transformative evolution into something vibrant and visual is a daunting idea. Nonetheless, Yang succeeds in stunning fashion, leaving us with a deeply soulful and insightful film. As the narrative unfolds, one will discover two great, pivotal exceptions to the self-analysis undertaken by the many characters present here - N.J.'s magical Japanese dot.com colleague Ota, and his phenomenally precocious 8-year-old son, Yang-Yang; both are intuitive visionaries who've managed to make such instincts work for them in beautiful fashion, and both serve as points of clarity, upon a horizon, which others must move towards.

Structured by ritual, the film begins with a dire wedding and ends with a transcendant funeral, and it feels like a discreet glimpse into something much more expansive - this tightly woven, overlapping narrative combines a humanism and character detail evocative of Satyajit Ray with the kind of tightly choreographed sprawl one would associate with Robert Altman or Jean Renoir; a large number of the scenes that Yang constructs pose intricate questions, leading to a gradual upward modulation in emotional intensity towards the end of the film. Yang - wisely I feel - selected several non-actors for major roles here (other filmmakers or writers mostly); the entire cast has a deep and intuitive grasp of the material, and performances throughout are memorably natural. Yang has a penchant for incorporating incidental scene material as symbolic elements - shooting through windows and against mirrors, and using reflections to undescore emotional points within, and this is breathtaking at several points (watch for the heartbeat in one extraordinary, mostly non-verbal scene). The combination of such a strong sense of visual improvisation within a rather intricate and literary narrative is unusual and quite powerful.

Through it all N.J., the memorable Ota, and Yang-Yang stand as the key characters, with Yang-Yang - who combines a child's directness with an intuitive soulfulness that manages to seem both philosophically ageless and cinematically spontaneous - giving voice to the emotional center of what assorted other characters in this film fumble towards and stumble around (and what Edward Yang, with far more virtuosity, also sought to do): "When I grow up, I want to tell things people don't know, show them stuff they haven't seen."

This great, rich film accomplishes this in glorious fashion.