Rizi

In his latest films, Ming-Liang Tsai seems to shed all the superfluous elements. This recovery of the body (the real illness of actor Kang-sheng Lee) and of the spirit (the alienation in the city) is a challenge to the viewer which does not need dialogue to express a certain desolation, which is also a disease of our society. The director makes cinema more pure, but also more difficult to bear.

Tsai's films have been becoming more and more minimalist over time. Yet while his stories have always been very implicit, films such as Ai qing wan sui (1994), Bu san (2003) and the masterful Jiao you (2013) all have a message, a concept, a central idea. Even a extremely minimalist piece such as Xi you (2014) is very conceptual.

Rizi lacks in that regard, in my opinion. I can see how Tsai wanted to strip down a film even more than some of his other work, to get even closer to the essence, and this is to be applauded. At the same time it seems to me the film is an afterthought and not a premeditated work. From what I gather, Tsai had been shooting Kang-sheng Lee and Anong Houngheuangsy separately, without the goal of making a film.

Apparently he was then compelled to create a feature film after all and decided the center piece would be an encounter between the two men. Now, that encounter is filmed beautifully and while it has been described as erotic, I'd say above all it is a human encounter.

However the material before and after this central event is disconnected and does not have the same weight as provided by the performances in some Tsai's earlier films. One could argue that this disconnection is on purpose, but it just did not feel that way to me. It felt somewhat artificial.

Still, the two hours were a nice meditative experience, so if you are a slow cinema afficionado it's worth seeing. But it's no Stray Dogs or Goodbye Dragon Inn.

Actually, none/nada, but still captivating as we silently (except for a few scenes with background noise) follow two men as they live their days. We experience one's pain though heated acupuncture; acupressure; neck brace; very deep total body muscle tearing massage. For millions that day-to-day marginal existence defines their lives?

The first scenes is actually a good test. If you enjoy it, I think you'll love this movie. If not, I strongly advise you to stop there. The whole movie is indeed made of the same substance: long motionless sequence-shot. No action per so. No dialog.

"Rizi" ("Days" in English) is the first Tsai Ming-liang movie that I've ever seen. It appears that he's Taiwan's answer to Jim Jarmusch. The movie is the ultimate example of slow cinema, featuring long takes and only a handful of lines (none of which are subtitled). I guess you could say that the movie is about life, as an affluent man and an immigrant have a brief fling.

You'll have to avoid the movie if you want to see superheroes, explosions, car chases, etc. This is a low-key film focused very much on the characters. I wouldn't call it the greatest movie ever made, but it's still more interesting than the umpteenth movie where Tom Cruise narrowly avoids all danger. I don't know if it's available on any streaming service, so you'll probably have to check a neighborhood video store.