TIFF 09: FACE Review
Cinema is as close to immortality as anyone will achieve. Beautiful facsimiles (when preserved on celluloid, DVD, digital drives, etc.) of people, preserved at specific ages long after they are gone. We can see Greta Garbo or Charlie Chaplin or Jean-Pierre Leaud as a confused and passionate child and make friends with them; love them even. Tsai Ming-Liang's latest move literalizes that love on screen in interesting ways. Fanny Ardant eats an apple while a reflection of her in a nearby aquarium is that of Yu Li-Ching (one of the director's staple actresses). The take hangs for so long that it almost appears a picture of Yu Li-Ching starts to smile. An optical illusion perhaps, but that is what cinema is in the first place.
The plot (as much as any film by the Taiwanese auteur has one) is that of Lee Kang-Sheng making a film on Salome in France (in the basement of the Louvre no less) using French actors (Fanny Ardant, Jean Pierre Leaud and Laetitia Casto). One of the key props, a magnificent stag, goes missing during shooting. But really, who watches Tsai Ming-Liang for plot. No, the film revels in the sensual, familiar motifs that grace many of his previous films, but here in French locations. The images are tactile enough that you can physically connect to: a small finch stepping between fingers, a burst of a kitchen faucet that almost turns Chaplin-esque. But nothing so much as the signature scene in which Casto and two nude back-up dancers perform the Dance of the Seven Veils to the director who is covered in plastic and tomato sauce. Never to take things literal, but always sensual, the song is done without music, but rather the loud rattle of the metal hangers used by the dancer and the translucent plastic and a magnificent dress.
Physical connection (in more than one way, the images are sensual, strange and erotic) is established with the viewer. A kissing session by candle light, or Kang-Sheng and Mathieu Almaric mutually masturbating one another in a lonely spot. Taiwan and France connect also in Kang-Sheng flipping 50 photographs to recreate the ending of the 400 Blows. And facial expressions of sensuality are captured that echo Andy Warhol's experimental film "Blow Job," the one which focuses on facial expressions as one receives pleasure.
At two and a half hours it may take Tsai Ming-Liang about 60 minutes too long to say that he wants to go right up to the screen and kiss French cinema, but he captures a lot of memorable images, and a couple interesting musical numbers along the way to warrant a read of his unusual love-letter.
The plot (as much as any film by the Taiwanese auteur has one) is that of Lee Kang-Sheng making a film on Salome in France (in the basement of the Louvre no less) using French actors (Fanny Ardant, Jean Pierre Leaud and Laetitia Casto). One of the key props, a magnificent stag, goes missing during shooting. But really, who watches Tsai Ming-Liang for plot. No, the film revels in the sensual, familiar motifs that grace many of his previous films, but here in French locations. The images are tactile enough that you can physically connect to: a small finch stepping between fingers, a burst of a kitchen faucet that almost turns Chaplin-esque. But nothing so much as the signature scene in which Casto and two nude back-up dancers perform the Dance of the Seven Veils to the director who is covered in plastic and tomato sauce. Never to take things literal, but always sensual, the song is done without music, but rather the loud rattle of the metal hangers used by the dancer and the translucent plastic and a magnificent dress.
Physical connection (in more than one way, the images are sensual, strange and erotic) is established with the viewer. A kissing session by candle light, or Kang-Sheng and Mathieu Almaric mutually masturbating one another in a lonely spot. Taiwan and France connect also in Kang-Sheng flipping 50 photographs to recreate the ending of the 400 Blows. And facial expressions of sensuality are captured that echo Andy Warhol's experimental film "Blow Job," the one which focuses on facial expressions as one receives pleasure.
At two and a half hours it may take Tsai Ming-Liang about 60 minutes too long to say that he wants to go right up to the screen and kiss French cinema, but he captures a lot of memorable images, and a couple interesting musical numbers along the way to warrant a read of his unusual love-letter.
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