Director: Tsai Ming-liang
Country of origin: Taiwan
Starring: Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi
Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang veers into much stranger waters with his surrealist take on lust, The Wayward Cloud. Taiwanese cinema often gets a bad rep for having very long and slow narratives; without a doubt, it is an acquired taste. The Wayward Cloud is no exception to this stereotype. The first shot, itself, is a static, high-angle vantage of Kaohsiung's MRT system, lasting around four minutes. But it is the sheer eccentricity that made this film as alienating and as unenjoyable as it was. Basically the acclaimed veteran Tsai focused the entire movie around this relationship between sex and watermelons. Amidst an intense drought, the city of Kaohsiung is without water and air-conditioning. Possibly for the amount of water that it contains, the watermelon is used as a main source of food and liquid. Simultaneously, the watermelon is utilized in pornographic movies, creating a relationship that I didn't understand at all. Basically what The Wayward Cloud tells is a love story between a quiet girl and a porn star, and for whatever reason, there are intermittent scenes of bizarre, unnecessary musical numbers and explicit sex scenes. The premise at its base seems like an interesting one, but it is clouded by many of the films pointless quirks. The actor's strong performances are ultimately nullified by intensely avant garde stylistics. The Wayward Cloud is by no means a good example of Tsai's work, or a good representation of the principles that Taiwanese cinema stands for.
*/*****
