Tsai Ming-Liang embodies a lot of the Second New Wave movement in Taiwanese cinema by making gobsmackingly beautiful movies where not even one single thing happens for like twenty minutes. Theres a scene in Days of a guy just taking a bath in a bucket that’s about five times longer than it has any possible reason to be and the lighting is like six million invisible deep sea fish. Early Edward Yang stuff like Terrorizers is good for this too. I’ve fallen asleep during That Day On The Beach at least 20 times. Still haven’t seen the ending. I would call it a personal favorite
I recently saw Jia Zhangke's latest movie, which was filmed in China over the course of 22 years. Half documentary, half fiction; Though they were short glimpses, the documented footage from early 00's Chinese culture really balanced the narrative in a way I'd never seen before. Without revealing more, I'll just say the soundtrack was perfect. Caught By the Tides is one of those slice of life movies with a slow build and huge payoff.
An amazing movie that is a little bit over 3 hours long (something I wish I had known when I went to watch it alone at Metrograph on a Sunday night). The scenes are beautiful and above all of that, a really meaningful movie. It’s an epic story about a young boy in Taiwan set in the early 1960s. I replay the scenes in my mind constantly and it’s become something that I’m constantly reflecting on about how to tell a violent story, beautifully.
