I was reminded while watching Exit of two films I love: Ming-liang Tsai's *What Time Is It There?* [2001] and Yoon-ki Lee's *This Charming Girl* [2004]. The former because Shiang-chyi Chen stars in both of them; the latter because Chen's award winning performance, as the lonely 'protagonist' in Exit, is every bit as good as Ji-su Kim's Charming Girl. One of the opening scenes has Chen packing a grocery bag with food staples for her daughter who doesn't like her and who rarely comes home. Chen ignores the contempt for her coming from her daughter sitting at the table. It's a wonderfully understated gut punch of a scene to start things off.
Exit almost goes beyond the "watching paint dry" velocity of Tsai's films and breaks into "watching paint weather and rot" tempo. The cinematography is smooth and creative, almost Doyle-y: like filming someone through a plant, down a hall, reflected off a mirror. There's free form surreal blurry creativity at an important point.
That's where the good stuff ends, for me. This is misery porn. Her daughter hates her; her out-of-town husband won't accept her calls; she loses her job; her sewing machine breaks; her water stops running; the deadbolt on her front door doesn't work. On and on. On top of that, the director gives her early onset menopause and declares that's what the film is about! I could be okay with all that. The misery is juxtaposed to her menopausal reawakening of desire. An odd juxtaposition, but there you have it. What spoiled the film for me was the sound of it. The reawakening is linked to and escorted by a Tango. But is it sexy or intimidating? I don't know if it's the particular piece that didn't work for me, or if it was the way it was used. Suggesting the latter, Chen's tango partner has a breathing problem. There's too many long scenes of listening to him whimper and breathe laboriously. The film feels assembled to annoy more than grown organically.
Exit isn't meant to be a pleasant film. There's a lot to admire, but I didn't enjoy it.
