Le Voyage en Occident

Sometimes minimalism irks me. Sometimes it gets me. Journey To The West gets me. It offers no discernible dialogue or plot, instead it's a 50 minute meditative art piece wherein Holy Motors' Denis Levant meditates and a monk walks very, very slowly, often in public. Without doing much at all, it's hilarious, infuriating, profound, poetic, and utterly brilliant. I haven't seen any of Tsai Ming-liang's other films yet so I don't have any context but this works on its own. Like Chris Marker with La Jetee before him, Journey To The West questions the motion in motion picture. It questions the ambiguities of life - ideas of motivation, drive, purpose, relief, but also cinematically in the sense of conventional setup and payoffs and journeys. Above all, it's a film that revels in the tranquility of the moment (or not so tranquil), and while it's surreal in mood it feels utterly real, refreshing and revealing of the human condition.

Granted, the film definitely tests the boundaries of tedium, and if it were any longer I probably wouldn't have tolerated it as much, but instead Ming-liang is restrained and economic with all his dozen or so shots. Scenes like watching the monk climb slowly down a subway staircase for 15 minutes bleeds so much life. It's pure meditative cinema, stripped down but honest. Other shots are almost a case of Where's Wally in finding the monk among the crowd. It's delightfully entertaining and makes you think about cinema can do. Self-aware moments certainly confirm that Ming-liang isn't ignoring the audience. I can't tell whether he's is truly pretentious or laughing at us with this, but it works on so many levels. It holds a tense and quirky atmosphere that's interesting and strangely poignant, yet quietly exuberant. Helps that it's such a rich aesthetic experience with its gorgeous cinematography and dense sound design. I understand why many find the film hallow but this is a rich tapestry for me.

8/10

I think the director Tsai got a very serious identity problem. The first thing we have to ask about this monk's presence in Marseille, France. If this crazy monk walking like a slow-motion being half frozen in time in the streets of Marseille, we should ask director Tsai a basic logic question: With such snail-like walking, pretending wrapped in Zen, how this monk arrived in this city in the first place? By train? By bus? By airplane? By....what? You think the bus, the train and the airplane would have to wait this sucker step by step in slow motion to reach the train, the bus, the airplane. Just because of this sucker's religious belief, all the schedules of the train, the bus, the airplane or whatever transportation means would have to be scrubbed to accommodate this sucker to aboard?

If this monk doing this journey as a die-hard believer, why he wanted to choose a big and busy city to walk? How he crossed all the streets in a busy city? The traffic lights would have to await him to pass the crossroads, all traffic would have to stop, awaiting his crossing? Why he didn't choose a countryside to walk instead? Trying to attract more people to take notice of him? So if this sucker purposely chose a busy city instead of a countryside, a wildness without people around, then this sucker is a phony, still craving fame and notification. I don't think people in Marseille would give a damn to this monk, if without reminding people in the streets that they were shooting a film about a sucker monk in bright orange-red color robe, a traffic accident might not be avoided. There were more sad scenes met the eyes, lot of parts of Marseille didn't look or feel like French, more like the Middle East or some Muslim cities in Africa.

I don't know what Tsai wanted to express in this stupid film, I am at least not that pretentious to say, "Wow, what a piece of art!" "What a unique achievement!" to pretend that I really got something out of this nothingness. I am NOT THAT DEEP as those two reviewers, because this film by this phony director is a typical living example of one of the Anderson's stories for the children: "The Emperor's New Clothes". This film is actually like the emperor's clothes, because there's nothing under that clothes, the film was a totally NAKED joke! I'd like Tsai's next movie project will make this monk running naked or, still dressed in that robe and snail walking in North Pole and, THAT WILL BE MUCH MUCH DEEPER! : )

"The longer you stay on the shot, greater the pressure" - is something we're familiar with when it comes to directors like Tarkovsky, he doesn't shy away from staying with his camera on a scene for as long as necessary. With this film, I did felt quite intimidating with the first shot of the film of an older man's face staring into the camera, lying down and giving off the impression (to me) that he had woken up. The shot lasts for about 8 minutes.

We then follow a monk throughout the rest of the film, walking in ultra-slow-motion, the longest one was probably how walked down stairs during 14 minutes, lots of people passing by him, some watching him, some ignoring him and just moving on. At first I was into this, actually finding the shots really beautiful and soothing to rest my eyes upon, but I then ended up falling asleep, not only once, but twice, having to go back to the spot where I think I fell asleep.

The most disappointing thing to me however is that this is categorized as a drama, the monk is actually played by an actor and so is the old man that we sometimes see just watching either the monk or nothing at all. I've seen documentaries before with monks walking like this, the most famous one from Godfrey Reggio's QATSI trilogy, a trilogy moving in a very rapid pace to fast music. This film however is more like scenes from Roy Andersson's films, the camera locked on a spot and then something taking place in front of it, only that this film got no plot, it got no music and in the end I didn't really learn anything at all from it, compared to the QATSI films. It could've been a great "opposite-film" to those films with its slow pace and a message to the people to slow down, take it easy, but in the end I just ended up being a bit bored and disappointed by the whole experience.

I did however give the film 5 stars out of 10, because some of the shots are just fantastic with it's natural lighting, especially the staircase scene with the rim light around the monk and the sparkling points on the railings.

This is a piece of art work that is extremely unique . You are sitting and exploring all the items and characters in the scene, like sitting in front of a painting and watching it. Examination of events. Which randomly happens in it, ordinary people around the main character. It is a confrontation between traditional form of life and modernity. Calm concentration in front of hustle and bustle.

Tsai Ming-liang has made narrative films, but this is not one of them. Here he and Kang-sheng Lee try to capture the essence of Zen on film. No beginning, no end, no story, no meaning. Just being, and awareness. Total awareness of every step you take on your path. I left the theatre calm and soothed, and carried the feeling with me.

I admire Lee for his devotion and vulnerability. His slow walk must have required rigorous training and discipline, and application. Only by reaching that Zen state of mind could he descend those stairs the way he did. And walking through the crowded streets of Marseille like that, even though there must have been some security around, took courage.

This is not a narrative film to consume as entertainment. It is the registration of an event, and it reaches out on a much deeper level.