Tsai Ming-Liang strips life to basics in hypnotic film
VENICE : Taipei-based director Tsai Ming-liang lived up to his reputation as the master of ‘Slow” cinema in Venice Thursday with “Stray Dogs”, the poetic late of a homeless family on the margins of society.
A father…played by actor Lee kang-sheng, a regular in Tsal’s feature films—scrapes out a meager living as a human billboard for luxury apartments in Taipeiwhite his teenage son and young daughter live off supermarket food samples.
The three come together again at the end of each repetitive day to set, wash and sleep.
With extremely long takes and the minimalist dialogue characteristic of “Slow” cinema, “Stray Dogs” explores the toll life on the streets takes on a father who can offer his children little more than basic shelter in an abandoned house and washing facilities in a public bathroom.
Among fleeting scenes capturing simple delights—such as the boy’s attempt to amuse his sister by decreasing up her prized cabbage—the film explores basic needs in depth, lingering extensively on images of urinating or eating.
The result is a college of hypnotic shots bordering on the obsessive.
“In the world I have created, everything stems from an understanding of things as time passes. I have to let things rest and be dtgested,” Makaysian-born Tsai told journalist in Venice where his film in competition for the Golden Lion.
“I feel at a loss when I am faced with the speed modern life imposes on us. I feel being slow is a technique to find one’s way in the confusion,” said Tsai. Whose film “Vive Lamoure’ – another example of slow cinema—won the Lion 1994.
The director, who confirmed “Stray Dogs” would likely be his last film, brushed aside suggestions that the work may not be appreciated by general audiences.
“I see little other than commercial films nowadays in the cinema. People might leam to appreciate slowness,” he said.