Goodbye Dragon Inn - Tsai Ming Liang

Tsai, newly awarded with Medal of Honor by French government, is probably unknown outside film festival circuit. The slow pace and depressing themes have made his films not quite accessible for mainstream audiences. Even in Taiwan, he has trouble raising money for his new projects regardless of how critically acclaimed his previous films are.

His very first debut in 1992, Rebels of the Neon God, set the color and tone for all the following films he made. Working with the same actors and actresses and with loosely connected but largely different plots and settings, he created a bleak and oppressive world where his protagonists yearned for connections in vain and often set out for actions that only led to self-destruction and disappointment. 

Goodbye Dragon Inn is showing in this year's international film festival and it made me crave for a drink after it was over. All the signature styles of Tsai are here: Excruciatingly long shots, scarce dialogues, the desolate and dilapidated urban setting, heavy shadows and blinking lights. Even the tropical torrential rain, his favorite metaphoric subject, was pouring through the film. Loneliness, alienation, repression, the words that have been used to describe all his other films, fit perfectly well here. Beyond all that is the same nostalgia. The nostalgia is more explicit than ever: Dragon Inn, a popular martial-art film made in 60s, was showing through the film in the background. It represents a lost past, a death of cinema, an era when heroes and fairy tales still existed.

Gay subplots appeared frequently in Tsai's films. In Vive l'amour, in one scene the main character lied underneath the bed and was ultimately turned on while his object of desire was having sex with a woman. In The River, a father went to a bathhouse only to find out he almost had sex with his own son in the dark. Goodbye Dragon Inn also has one of the most intense and comical gay cruising scenes in cinema. But I heard Tsai himself is not gay. He is fascinated with gay sex probably because it gives him the best plot devices to portrait repressed desires and despairs for human intimacy.

All of Tsai's films can be seen as various explorations of the same theme. He never seems to succumb to the pressure of commercial films and stubbornly stick to his own vision and interpretation of the modern world. In the end, he finds himself a true artist who is revealing and continues to reveal the stark reality of modernization.

Belle and Sebastian

On one of the rare sunny summer afternoons in 1998 I came across an album named “Boys with Arab Straps” in Tower Records sample stations. I don’t remember whether it was the name or the album cover that caught my attention, but the curiosity of the moment led to my longest commitment to a band. The songs were catchy and moody, and the lyrics were witty and poetic, fitting perfectly well with my own sense of being on that day: Life is full of youthful adventures and excitements, with a hint of melancholy and nostalgia hovering on the horizon.

Over the six years I collected almost every album they released in North America. In the meantime they rose from an obscure Glasgow-based indie band to something much bigger, becoming kind of cult band for certain demographic section who deviate from more mainstream taste. It even made into the list of the music junkies in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. On the other hand, I found myself listening to them less and less, and the last album in 2002, a soundtrack written for Todd Solenz’s film of the same name, was largely uninspiring and forgettable. Just when I thought they would disappear without a trace like so many others, I found their latest album in my neighborhood music store. This time I had to ask the opinions of the staff who had an all-knowing look. Was it just as good as their old stuff? Yes, he said. But definitely a happier one.

Strangely enough, I do find myself liking this album a lot, even if it is slicker, more sugary and pop than any of their previous works. One of my favorite, Sleep On a Sunbeam, has lyrics like this:

Think about a new destinationIf you think you need inspirationRoll out the map and mark it with a pinI will follow every directionJust lace up your shoes while I’m fetching a sleeping bag, a tent...Another summer’s passing byAll I need is somewhere I feel the grass beneath my feetA walk on sand, a fire I can warm my handsMy joy will be complete

What happened to me? What was gripping on me and making me so high whenever I hummed these lines? Is this the sign of me still holding on to a belief when everything is still possible and life still holds infinite possibilities? Or, is it just the travel bug affecting me?So when Belle and Sebastian came to town and performed in Warfield last night, Diego got me a ticket so that I could see them live for the first time. It was a soldout show, proving its continuing popularity. The crowd was mostly white or Asian, comfortable middle-class kids who think they are cool and smart and rebellious. The vintage and retro style were everywhere, a step up from grunge and punk and a couple of years from becoming bobos. This same crowd would feed on bands like Nick Drake, Rilo Kely, White Stripes, Neutral Milk Hotel or Postal Services, and ironically they are all my favorite bands -- maybe I am just a make-believer among this groovy bunch, trying to make up for my missing part as a disenchanted but sophisticated American youth.

There was no surprise from the performance. Stuart Murdoch, the lead singer, was charismatic and funny and stayed as the soul of the band. Since so many different kinds of instruments were used, the stage seemed to be more densely populated than usual. The best moment came when four audience, all Berkeley-looking girls, jumped onto the stage and played weird percusion instruments while dancing for a very cheerful song. Your spirit was lifted, but your soul got barely touched.

I guess I would keep on playing Dear Catastrophe Waitress whenever I need to be cheered up. But I would probably grow out of it someday soon.