Lived City (2): Love and Desire on Cities’ Margins

愛情萬歲 Vive L’amour

蔡明亮

Starting Questions

1. What kinds of city-dwellers are the three protagonists? What do they have in common? How do they function in daily life and at work? Are they in the state of what Louis Wirth calls “anomie” (with impersonal, transitory, segmental, and mostly utilitarian contacts’ )?

2. What does the title of the film mean? Do the characters ‘love’ or learn to love each other? Or maybe they are just drifters (nomads) in the city as a Waste Land? How do they meet each other?

3. Are there (symbolic) meanings in their drifting in the city, their chance encounters and hide-and-seek? Can you relate to it?

Outline

Anonymous people on the margins of a city Their lack Their work Their desire and daily routine

Their chance encounters and meetings The title: ironical? Do they know how to love? 蔡明亮 and Taipei

People on the Margins of Society Their Lack and Work Anonymous, not having a home or family; their past not

known Menial jobs -- always on the move, using the public space or

expropriating private space real-estate agent (Yang)– efforts in posting ads, cleaning the

houses and killing mosquitoes; waiting all the time in boredom; 20:00; 1:13

sales person for columbarium ( 靈骨塔 小康 ): sending junk mails; wandering around, (with Chen) having no place to go but to his work places. (36)

illegal trader and vendor (Chen)– escaping from the police.

Selling two kinds of home

People on the Margins of Society What they have in common: “Homeless”

Hunger and desire – their frequent actions:

Eating (from food stands or lunch boxes), drinking, smoking and making phone calls.

Chance Encounters in an Apartment for Rent

The man and the woman

Pretending ignorance, while chasing after and waiting for each other.

A contrast between the affluent background (store fronts) and their emptiness.

Hunger, mutual needs –

Differences in Their Hide and Seek Chen – with more mobility (calling her when he

wants); Yang – Bored and Hungry

Kang 康Kang: Lacks Identity Not in Social Games

Differences in Their Hide and Seek

Kang – Suicidal Curious, Peeping, Desiring Innovative in his use of food e.g. 45:00; 1:22)

The man and 小康 Chance encounter – showing their interest in each other

In the same boat –from antagonism to comradeship

People on the Margins of Society How do they meet each other?

1. Chance encounters Not having a home or family or fixed places to eat and sleep Choice

The man and the woman McDonalds’ playing hide-and-seek afterwards. (14:00)

The man and 小康 live in an empty apartment for sale. meeting 49:41 develop comradeship when escaping from it together. (The three’s encounter 1:00 --; dinner together 1:18, while Yang eats alone 1:15)

Is the title ironic? Do they know how to love?

The title is ironic in the sense that love is important but what the characters lack, so the implied cheerfulness of the sentence is not in the film.

Maybe the characters do not know how to love, but they are searching for it.

The ending shows a bit of hope in the two characters: the woman (Yang) and salesman ( 小康） .

The man and 小康 小康 expresses his desire 1:35:00;

1:43:00

The woman

Living in a void or Waste Land?

Living in a void?

anomie = lack of moral or social principles in a person or in society

They are uprooted from social fabric, but not without basic human needs for living and love.

The woman and 小康 have expressed their desires show their desire to live (fear of death)

one thought of (in the bathroom scene) and the other attempted suicide.

are self-reflexive e.g. 小康 and watermelon, his cross-dressing and

performance; --he has the ingenuity in the use of signs to express his desires and even cross gender-boundaries, not limited by their traditional meanings. (46:00; 1:22:00)

e.g. the woman’s crying and self-checking.

蔡明亮 and Taipei From Malaysia, but he shows very strong concern with

and understanding of Taipei and some of its residents. minimalist style – tends to use long-take ( 長鏡頭 ),

reduces the artificial coloring of music and dramatic plot; uses the same actors and actresses, sometimes even the same settings;

Dominant symbols: water, old and derelict apartment buildings

Characters: drifting people in Taipei (and away from Taipei); never having a good family meals, and drinking a lot as if in great thirst.

蔡明亮 and Taipei

The domestic spaces in Tsai's films are small, bare, gloomy, confined by the walls,

doors and ceiling that take up a large part of the screen.

sense of confinement -- achieved through the camera's long-take from a fixed position.

Instead of following the characters into their room, the camera frequently stays at a fixed spot, allowing the walls to block our view of the interior space of that room and to frame the characters' action in that space. (source)

蔡明亮 and Taipei: Images of Spatial Constraints & Eating

The domestic spaces e.g. 青少年哪吒

The father eats alone.

Elevator scene.

蔡明亮 and Taipei: Images of Spatial Constraints & Eating (2)

The domestic spaces e.g. 河流

The mother takes leftover from the restaurants she

works for.

. . . To feed her lover, her husband

and son.

蔡明亮 and Taipei: Images

The domestic spaces e.g. 洞

Spaces of fantasies in an infested apartment. Beautiful makeup and costume, cheerful singing in contrast with railings and bare and dirty walls.

Reference

“Families in the Postmodern Non-Places in the Films by Atom Egoyan and Tsai Ming-Liang.” http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/canada/paper/egoyan_tsai/