Tsai Ming-liang - Aiqing wansui ('Vive L'Amour') (1994)

Tsai Ming-liang's 1994 Venice Film Festival , Golden Lion award wining film (tied with Milcho Manchevski's 'Before the Rain'). Yang Kuei-Mei and Chen Chao-Jung star as May, a chic and seductive real estate agent, and Ah-Jong, a street merchant. This mesmerizing film revolves around the two young people and their encounters in one of the thousands of vacant, anonymous apartments that fill Taipei, Taiwan. After a chance meeting, the couple use the apartment for their impulsive sexual liaisons. A third person, a shy young gay man, hides in the same apartment, and spies on the couple, creating a bizzare love triangle. Considered by critics as reminiscent of the best works of Michelangelo Antonioni (Blow-Up), 'Vive L'Amour' presents its own compelling mix of quirky wit and eroticism.



The film focuses on three city folks who unknowingly share the same apartment: Mei, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-Kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)



Somewhere in Taipei is a nice apartment. A young gay guy, (who is lonely as hell and sells cremation urns) gets the key by bolding plucking it out of the lock while no one is looking. An attractive young female real estate agent who, while trying to sell or rent the place, also uses it, checks up on it, stops in to take a crap, or a lie down, or take a guy there for hot, but causal sex. The guy she takes up there is a well off street vendor. He gets his key by swiping it from her after the sex. It is more of a situation than a story. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)


I don't even know where to begin on Vive L'Amour. It is the second Tsai Ming-liang film I've seen, after The Hole. I doubted that it could be as good as The Hole, but it turned out to be an even better film. In fact, I'd say it's pretty close to perfect. The only thing I don't like about it is its American title - "Vive L'Amour" makes it sound like a romantic comedy starring Gerard Depardieu. This film is about love, but not in any conventional way. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)



Here's an intriguing fact about Vie L'Amour: there is not one piece of audible dialogue spoken until 21 minutes have gone by. One of the main characters does not speak until 49 minutes have passed. If you were to write out all the dialogue of the film, you could probably fit it on a single page. Tsai is simply audacious in his paucity of dialogue. And it could have easily seemed like little more than a stunt, but the characters still come off as fully developed and interesting people. The drama works wonders, and there is a lot of comedy, too. The film is also very erotic (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)



Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour is an honest and beautiful film about three lonely people whose lives become inextricably bound in a chance encounter. Dialogue is minimal and no one speaks for the first twenty-five minutes, creating a pervasive tone of emotional numbness. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)


In the end Tsai manages to masterfully blend these contradictory forces into a climax that interweaves three (one per character) magical cinematic moments: Tenderness, Innocence, and Sadness. Vive L'Amour is fine, intelligent and moving film making.


One of the best of Tsai Ming-liang's glacial case studies of contemporary isolation and alienation in Taipei/the world, VIVE L'AMOUR is gripping in spite of it's extreme slowness (his work shares this quality with Tarkovsky or Antonioni). Tsai's work is superficially very chilly and ultimately heartbreaking - though Tsai also (as always) manages to also sneak in a little deadpan humor, which in this case includes the rather ironic translated title. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)



"Vive L'Amour" is a superb film. It is a tale of despair, isolation, and the alienating effect of the Taipei city-scape (which can be applied on a larger scale to any urban wasteland). It is almost entirely wordless (the first 25 minutes pass without dialogue) and has shots that are held for an incredible length of time - a technique that some may find boring and some may find to be genius. When the film finally does end with a powerful seven minute-long closeup that really drives home the significance of all that has happened before, those that haven't been bored will walk away from "Vive L'Amour" feeling as if they are coming away better for the experience. For those that can immerse themselves in the film's peculiar rhythm, "Vive L'Amour" will stay with you for days. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109066/plotsummary)





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Links to previous 65 movie posts can be found here :
Movie links 1 to 65 (12 KB text file @RS)

66 Andrzej Wajda-Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
67 Eric Rohmer-Ma nuit chez Maud (1969)
68 Henning Carlsen-Hunger ('Svält') (1966)
69 Ermanno Olmi-L'Albero degli zoccoli (1978)
70 Eric Rohmer-Le Genou de Claire (1970)
71 Jean-Luc Godard-Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1979)
72 Alain Resnais-La Guerre est finie (1966)
73 Jean-Luc Godard-Charlotte et Véronique (1959)
74 Nelson Pereira dos Santos-Vidas Secas (1963)
75 Jan Svankmajer-Otesánek ('Little Otik') (2000)
76 Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne-Rosetta (1999)
77 Tsai Ming-liang - Aiqing wansui ('Vive L'Amour') (1994)