Original subtitles

I feel like I was kind of pushed along by fate,

I was always thinking about how I reached this stage.

It is of course due to my birth place and my childhood.

It is quite logical, for example,

if you are born in the 60s,

then in that experience of growing up,

watching films is quite common.

But in my family,

I have seven siblings and yet I was the only one

who spent every day watching films,

so not everyone in the family cultivated

this love of watching films,

in fact I had this opportunity

because I lived with my grandparents.

I think that it was fate,

because my grandparents liked to watched films.

My grandmother also had another hobby,

she liked reading

and so all this influenced

what I came to like later on.

I grew up in Malaysia

and my film going experience was much

the same as everywhere in Asia,

I watched what is now referred to as "commercial films",

not films by Fellini, Antonioni,

or the master filmmakers of the silent film era,

or Japanese directors like Kurosawa and Ozu.

The kind of films I saw were commercial films,

as we couldn't see those other kinds of films.

In South East Asia it's like this,

I think in all Asia it is much the same.

So this is the background I grew up in,

but when I started to make my own films,

I didn't make films from an escapist point of view,

on the contrary I wanted to really think carefully

about the work I was creating.

The most common film watching experience in Asia,

or the most apparent thing is that movies are

made for the masses.

This is its value system.

Movies are made to entertain the masses,

to serve the masses,

but for me from the very first film

I didn't take this approach,

it's quite strange.

Of course, if you look back and think

why did it happen like this, it's simple,

it's because I came to Taiwan in the 1980s.

Past Present

Why I make films?

Why I chose this path in filmmaking?

Why I don't care about ticket sales?

Why I'm not afraid of the fact that

people cannot understand my films?

I think it's got to do with my character.

I was born in Malaysia,

and grew up in the 1960s Malaysia.

It was different from Malaysia in the 80s or 90s.

In the 1960s there was this very unusual atmosphere,

it was very free.

When I was little, I saw a Malay film

showing a naked bottom when a character's sarong was pulled down

and the whole cinema burst out laughing.

Even when I was in high school,

Malaysian cinemas still openly

showed pornographic films

and add to that the fact that I was born in Malaysia,

no matter which ethnic groups you are

so everywhere I looked there were

different skin colours, different smells,

I heard different sounds of different religious prayers,

looking at and going into different places of worship,

even without going in you could still see them,

do you see what I mean?

So I think that my character

was formed in this atmosphere,

and that also include what I experienced

with my grandparents.

It all felt so free,

and so what I want is that freedom,

I go after that freedom.

When you have grown up,

there's actually not much freedom left.

And when you create things,

there's also not much freedom,

it isn't other people limiting you,

it's you yourself knowing what is and isn't proper,

knowing what's accepted and what's not, you don't persist,

but is that ture?

You don't ask why you can't.

you know you can't take clothes off,

there shouldn't be nudity or kissing

you can't do this or that.

But I have seen films

from other countries that enjoy much more freedom

and I know what my background was like,

so I know where the difference is,

so when I'm making films, I think a lot about

how I can find my freedom in film.

I felt I arrived in Taiwan at the right time,

it was towards the end of martial law.

But at that time lots of people

still didn't really know what they could do,

how much the government could tolerate,

everything was being tested,

everyone was learning.

So I think I also went along with the times

and I tested the limit a lot through my work.

So for my first film Rebels of the Neon God

I had a masturbation scene

I was teaching the children of Ximending district

how to swear.

Before this film, it wasn't allowed

and I don't know why but for me it was, it just was,

of course I had to argue,

had to strive to say this is realism.

Every film l've ever made since the beginning

right up to now, has been controversial.

Why was there controversy?

It's because my films are real,

they are starting to reflect the real world.

So this is how I got my opportunity,

because of this environment in Taiwan,

it was like a gift to me.

You can enter from here,

or over there.

I always used to come through here,

I'd get off the bus

and then walk through here

This cinema was quite different from the Odeon Cinema

because it showed a lot of Malay films

and also Hollywood films,

like The Sound of Music,

MGM films,

and also King Kong.

So the films here were quite important ones.

That's the reason that different ethnic groups came here.

The audience here was really mixed, not like the Capitol or the Odeon

where it was just Chinese audiences.

When they showed American films here lots of Malays

and Indians would come.

What I remember the most is

seeing the matinee show,

the Saturday afternoon screening.

When I came out of the cinema

it was just such a strange feeling,

to walk back out into daylight.

It was like coming out of a kind of timelessness,

I go in, the lights go off, they screen the film

and then at the end I go back out and it's still daytime, still bright.

Watching a film during the day is such a different feeling from watching at night

and I think it's that special kind

of feeling of timelessness.

I was born in Kuching's Chinatown.

It was in the town centre.

Both of my grandparents loved watching films.

My grandmother would go first,

to watch the 6:45pm show.

She would always buy fruit,

some pears or some peaches,

she would buy them for me.

At the entrance to every cinema

there would be stalls where Indians sold

peanuts or lentils

wrapped up in a cone made out of newspaper.

So I would watch the 6:45pm show

which would end sometime after 8:30pm

and then we would walk back to our noodle stall

and my grandmother would sell noodles

and my grandfather would go to watch a film.

He would take my hand

and I would go back into the cinema again.

Every day was like this, it was our routine.

I'd either watch the same film a second time

or we'd watch a different one.

In my memories, the Cathay Cinema is very important.

There were three cinemas that formed a triangle

and luckily I was born right in the middle of it.

Later on I lived a bit off to one side,

closer to the Odeon and Capitol.

These three cinemas formed

a kind of elongated triangle.

And in the middle there was another cinema, Rex Cinema.

This one was the closest to where I was born.

It was next to Chinatown, across from a Chinese temple.

My father sold noodles outside the temple gate.

I would also go to that cinema.

The Rex mostly showed American films,

it sometimes showed Malay films.

My grandfather's taste in film was a bit different,

my grandmother had fixed tastes,

she only watched Chinese films or Indian films.

My grandfather watched Chinese films and also other foreign films.

When I was little I didn't really like watching foreign films,

I preferred martial arts films or fantasy.

So sometimes when my grandfather

wanted to see an American film we would clash.

I remember once we walked to the cinema

and I wanted to watch a Shaw Brothers film there,

When I was an primary school student

around second or third grade

but that day my grandfather didn't want to see a martial arts film,

he wanted to see a James Bond film.

So when he took me over there I said

"Aren't we going to watch that one?"

and he said "No I want to see this one today".

But I refused to go inside the cinema,

I wouldn't let him buy tickets.

So in the end he took me back to watch the martial arts film.

I remember this quarrel with him

just because people's tastes are different.

Has that side been renovated?

Has the projection booth been demolished?

No, it hasn't.

Where is it?

I can't see the porthole. -Do you want to see it?

Yes. -I'll take you there.

Good.

Oh this is great!

This is the only old part left of this cinema building.

This is where film reels were kept.

Yes, that's the place.

There should be two film projectors here.

There must be two of them.

In 2003 I made Goodbye, Dragon Inn.

Lee Kang-Sheng directed "The Missing" and I directed "Goodbye, Dragon Inn"

At the time, Lee Kang-Sheng wanted to be a director,

I suggested he directs a short film.

Then he told me about a subject matter

and I thought "that's good,"

I'll make a film too and we can screen them together.

And that's how we made the double feature.

We have a very similar concept

about the disappearance of things nowadays.

My subject was the disappearance of a cinema.

Lee Kang-Sheng's was about the disappearance of

human relationship and feelings.

His film is about the disappearance of a little boy.

The screenplay, or rather the outline

for Goodbye, Dragon Inn was written in two weeks.

Every day during production, it was like going home,

sitting in the cinema,

getting the crew to set up lights,

and arranging the actors' movements.

We shot four scenes a day.

That filmmaking experience was very unique,

it was not at all hurried,

it was just like writing a diary,

it wasn't like filmmaking,

because usually when we make a film, there's a plot,

narrative developments, climax, et cetera.

This was strange, it was like

returning to a very natural kind of creative process.

It was all very familiar.

I think Goodbye, Dragon Inn

was a turning point for me.

It made me more determined

in certain aspects of filmmaking,

because it's a film about an old cinema

and in the Taiwan Fuhe Grand Theater

we found just such an old cinema.

The reason I wanted to film this old cinema is very simple.

When I made my previous film What Time Is It There?

I shot a scene in that cinema.

Afterwards the cinema was closed down,

it was really old and very hard to keep going.

There were only gay people inside watching,

but no other filmgoers,

so it was hard for the owner to keep the business going.

After I finished filming in that cinema

the owner told me he was closing the place down.

I asked him

if it would be torn down and he said that it was possible.

So I asked him to rent the cinema to me for a year

and I would see what I could do with it.

The reason I would act like this is very simple,

because when it comes to old cinema

I have so much history and personal experience

of this kind of public place.

I'm so familiar with them.

And I also know that they are all rapidly disappearing.

They're becoming obsolete in our time,

In my old hometown of Kuching

there are none of the eight or nine cinemas left,

just a couple of empty façade.

There's also another reason that

I wanted to film this old cinema.

When I was about forty years old,

I would often dream of an old cinema in Kuching called Odeon.

It was often in my dreams.

There's a scene in the dream,

I'm very small and playing in the cinema.

The fact that I often had this dream

meant that I was getting older,

some recollections would start

coming back to me in dreams.

In fact that's all very obvious, as you get older you'll see,

the things that you don't think about

will come to you in dreams.

Surviving memories will always come back to you,

and because I dream a lot,

they become a scene and they come back to me.

So when I saw this old cinema in Taiwan I felt as

if I should do something for it,

should put it into my work.

It was like the old cinema was calling to me

you should film me, otherwise I will be torn down soon.

I think as people we all have feelings like this.

So as an artist, I hope

I am able to preserve something in my work.

Look, this is the cinema I dreamed about.

I have so many memories of this cinema,

there was a crippled ticket seller,

middle aged, fierce-looking man, thin and tall.

This is where the main door was located, there were steps,

it was an old building, really old and tall.

The cinema's logo was a goose figure

and the name was Odeon.

At the entrance there was a steamed lentils seller

and an ice cream stall.

The corridor was very long, to get into the main hall.

Then when you were in,

at the main door they sold the one dollar 60 cent seats,

right there at the back,

the one dollar 30 cent and the 50 cent seats were at the sides,

over there, right by that wall there.

They used a fence to surround it,

to cover the back.

Kids used to run over there and secretly watch films

because this cinema showed

Japanese pornographic films before.

My grandfather would never have taken me to see those films,

he might have gone by himself to watch.

So if I wanted to watch, what did I do? I would just run over,

and look through the net.

The wind would blow the curtain,

and I would glimpse through the door

and could see the silver screen.

The first time I saw a woman's breast was here.

So I think the reason I became a director,

that I make films,

is because of my childhood experience.

I was living with my grandparents

for a long period of time,

and almost every evening was spent in the cinema.

The 7 o'clock show and then the 9 o'clock show,

my grandparents would take turns to sell noodles,

and then take turns to go to the cinema,

because they only had a small noodle stall,

they didn't both need to be there,

they could handle it one by one.

They watched films almost every day.

So I had that opportunity,

to go with them one by one to the cinema.

I started watching film around age three,

my childhood memory is good.

Now, for example, if I meet old actors, really old ones,

they can talk to me about films,

talk about that period of time,

the actors, titles of films,

the plot outlines, I remember them all.

So it's an incredibly valuable life experience.

I remember, under the moon

I remember, before the flowers

So much of the past lingers in my heart

Half is bitter, half is sweet

Year after year, I can't let go

Can't let go, can't let go

Under the moon, before the flowers

Can't let go, can't let go

I'll remember with longing forever

When Goodbye, Dragon Inn was done,

my conviction was even stronger.

Although the film didn't win any prize

at the Venice Film Festival,

it did attract a lot of attention,

from the media.

Almost every journalist who interviewed me

asked me the same question: "What is film?"

Tsai Ming Liang, tell us, what is film?

Or they asked "What are your films?"

They were curious.

At the time I was really excited.

Films have been developing for over a hundred years,

and so when people ask you "what is film?",

that's really interesting.

They had clearly seen that

my films are not like

the films everyone watches nowadays.

I also clearly felt that the filmmaking path I was following

was not the one I knew,

I was on a path I myself didn't know

and so I really thought hard about it.

So I think my thoughts

are developing alongside my work.

And as fate would have it,

things come into my dreams

and prompted me to make those films.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn…

I know those theaters.

He was portraying Taiwanese theaters,

those old theaters.

That is what he is missing.

It feels like those theaters have ghosts.

The ghost of our past!

I was very touched by that movie.

It has a sense of yearning.

It is interesting, it is fascinating!

He did capture the smell of the old theater,

I think that is very effective.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn is not only for that year but,

I think, for forever.

His movie is not only about watching what is on the screen

but also he tried to reach your soul,

so it is not only about what is happening there

and you become nothing or become a robot,

no, it is not like that.

He plays with your being an audience,

and when I see his films,

I always try my best to see it on the big screen.

It is always about this playing between watching

and what is going on there,

so I become part of that universe.

It is a very unique experience,

especially in the dark in the big theater.

Like Goodbye, Dragon Inn for example.

You shift your emotion so violently,

during the course of the film.

Some people said his films

contain really void and nothingness

but for me it is the opposite

because the emotion there is very broad,

from comedy to something, it changes so quickly,

like comedy it changes within the same shot,

change with time.

When you were talking about Director Tsai's films,

the first thing I thought of was “space”.

I feel like the space speaks,

the space breathes in his films.

It's what makes the strongest impression on me.

Also the way he films, the camera angles he uses,

so many of his scenes

have such great atmosphere.

I think that his films,

in so many fine details,

so many parts breathe and speak,

I think that's so interesting.

Like when I worked with him on Goodbye, Dragon Inn,

even the leg brace my character wore

making that sound in the space, “click, click, click”,

they are speaking,

so the actor doesn't need to speak.

Many people think there isn't much dialogue in his films,

but in fact, the speaking

isn't necessarily coming from the actors.

I think the speaking is from the sounds and the space,

I think they are also characters,

they are making sounds.

Actually sometimes the actors were added in

to coordinate with the space to complete an idea or a concept.

So I feel that some viewpoints about his films

and who it is that's actually speaking,

I think are really interesting.

The actor doesn't have any lines,

doesn't have anything to say,

but the space all around him,

or the sounds that I just mentioned,

or the objects or building,

I think those things themselves can speak.

I think this is one of the uniqueness of his films.

Actually by watching Goodbye, Dragon Inn

you will know how Tsai feels about old cinemas,

all his memories since childhood watching films,

about films of that period,

even about an old cinema like this,

existing and representing those cultural memories,

he's interested in it all.

You can tell from watching Goodbye, Dragon Inn that

as far as he's concerned,

watching films is not merely a question of

just enjoying a form of entertainment.

He wants to create an unique film watching experience

in such spaces for the audience too,

and to interact with his audience.

After making Goodbye, Dragon Inn,

fate called again,

Festival de Cannes asked me to make a short film for them,

and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum

asked me to do an exhibition for them,

so I thought "alright, I will film a cinema again,"

and this time, I will be filming my memories even more directly.

At the time as I was filming,

the cinema has been closed for more than ten years.

When I go inside an old cinema like that,

the memories come back.

Then, at the same time,

I know that this cinema will not be revived,

it will just decay there,

until one day it's razed to the ground,

maybe it will be turned into an office block or something,

or it will just decay there, just crumble away.

When I walk into the derelict cinema,

I soon spot a photograph placed on a seat,

a funeral photograph of an old lady.

I feel a bit spooked but at the same time I can feel

how much people in the past used to love watching films,

so much that when they died,

their grandchildren would put them back inside the cinema,

so they could watch films every day.

There is so much emotion in it.

From this, we can feel how this kind of cinema

was connected to people's lifestyles back then,

with their values, with their relationships.

You will also understand that era, what it was like then.

Obviously I lived through it,

so I'm very sensitive to it.

So I made It's a Dream

and when the film is done, I decided there and then,

to turn it into an installation art.

Installation art is also very natural to me, very free,

it's just how objects are to be arranged.

I think, this work consists of two important elements,

you can't look at it as an ordinary film,

it was shot on 35 mm film,

and when I finished filming that cinema,

I took out the chairs, 30 of them

and I sent them to Venice

and arranged them as an installation art

called It's a Dream.

I wanted to express that

these are two very important elements,

image, a film must have images

and this one was shot on 35 mm film.

And then there are the cinema chairs.

You must sit on a chair in order to watch a film,

this is the lifestyle from that period,

sitting on these cinema chairs and watching the screen.

You are sitting in that...

If you look at the derelict cinema, it has already “died”

it's no longer in use,

it's just abandoned there, decaying.

So I am like filming a corpse,

and then taking parts of the corpse for audiences to sit on,

you can touch it, sit on it,

that's the concept behind this installation art.

So after exhibiting it in Venice for three months,

I was asked to exhibit it in Rotterdam.

In Rotterdam, an art critic

saw the exhibition and wrote an article stating that

this installation art declares the death of cinema,

but also at the same time announces its resurrection.

And action!

Should I light the cigarette first?

That's alright.

Or should I light it here?

Ok.

When I was in fifth grade my life changed.

It changed because at the end of fourth grade

I came second to last in the exams.

Actually the reason was obvious,

I'd never done any homework.

After watching two films with my grandparents every night

I was too tired to do homework,

so they did it for me.

I didn't do any revision during my primary school years.

I went back for lunch at my father's stall in the town centre.

When my father saw my grades

he hit me with a stick,

a stick of rattan, the first time he hit me is because of my grades

When the term was over I was taken away

from my grandparents' side.

So in fifth grade I had to go to a new school,

the school is right next to my father's house.

It was not far from the city

The whole atmosphere at the new school was different.

It was like in the countryside.

And the students there were...

I didn't really fit in with the students there,

I didn't make any friends.

In sixth grade

some students told all of my classmates

not to speak to me,

so that year was very quiet,

with nobody to talk to.

So my life in the countryside was quite unique,

at school it was very silent.

Then when I got home

I didn't really get along with my brothers

because I hadn't grown up with them,

I have one elder brother and two younger brothers

and if I offended one of them

then the three of them would all stop talking to me,

they will join together to stop talking to me

or they would all argue with me.

So you see at that time

I had a really strange feeling of isolation.

But it's strange because looking back on it,

I don't think I was very sad then,

I think I was actually alright with it all.

I had started to love reading,

almost every day I would

borrow a storybook from the library to read

and then I also had

lots of time to imagine about

how my grandfather and I would escape this world.

It's strange I love to imagine about that,

sometimes I am sad thinking about that,

sometimes I feel very happy.

I would spend a lot of time imagining about this every day,

before I went to sleep,

so later on my sleeping habits weren't so good,

I slept very late,

thinking about this and that,

and that got me into the habit of imagining things.

I used to live here.

Looks very old now.

Here is our Ming Liang.

Hello there. -Our director Ming Liang !

Happy New Year.

I knew them when I was little.

I know.

We were together as children.

Happy new year.

Happy new year. Wishing you good health and good fortune.

Thank you, thank you.

I got to go now.

Wishing you good health. Take care.

The clan association still keeps some photos of you.

This shop-house of yours is really big.

It has been so many years.

Yes.

It is still beautiful.

Where did my grandmother live early on?

Which building?

Many years ago when I was still a child,

she lived in the middle row, she lived near my grandmother's house.

Then she moved into the building across the street.

The one above the metalwork shop? -Yes.

And that's how she got to know my father?

No, she met your father first.

So my mother moved there after marriage? -Yes.

Opposite here. A very long time ago.

Your mother was amazing, such a hard worker,

she was one of a kind.

She did everything. She was very hardworking.

Yes, she started working when she was still very young.

There aren't many like her.

When your mother moved to the 4th Mile Road area

every time she came down to run errands,

she would always come to my place and sit here.

I would be cooking and I would try to get her to eat with us but she would refuse,

sometimes I'd get her a bow of noodles,

she said she sold noodles so didn't want to eat them

I'd make her tea and she'd sit here drinking

and chatting with me for ages.

I heard that my mother didn't really like my father.

it was my grandmother who liked her. -It was actually your grandmother who liked her.

your grandmother and your mother were really in tune

It's true, she told me. -Yes, it's true.

Why didn't my mother like my father?

Your mother didn't pay much attention to anyone,

she was very honest, she was always busy working,

always working, without complaining.

Even when she got scolded,

she never complained.

Your maternal grandmother was fierce,

she could really give her a good telling off.

All the things that were happening when you were young

you often didn't know about them.

Even things about your own mother.

I didn't know that,

sometimes my mother would...

go back to the town to see her friends.

She always went by herself, she never took me with her.

She would sit on that chair

and chat to her best friend.

Do you know what I mean? It's just so new to me.

It's as if I'm building up a new image of my mother.

She was also that kind of girl,

she struggled, she has problems, you know.

Today I heard one of her friends say that

because she married someone from the countryside

she had to walk a really long way on a gravel path

wearing her wedding clothes, all the way to her mother-in-law's house

and she just cried the whole way there.

My mother never told me this,

but her good friend told me about it.

So you see, it's like

my mother has so many more layers to her.

I think it's really interesting.

I was travelling again after my mother had died,

I went to Europe.

When I was in Poland,

I saw a whole field of corn

and suddenly I found myself thinking about my mother

because my mother used to grow corn

and she would plant it on the hillside.

The soil wasn't very fertile

so she could never grow very much.

When she harvested the corn

it was only ever enough for our family to eat.

She would always keep the best corn for me

and so I found myself thinking about her and her habits.

She taught me to like to do work, to be hardworking.

Mother is the person who stays at home,

waiting for her child come back.

She would always be like that, never change.

When you came back she is happy

and when you need to leave she wouldn't stop you,

she wouldn't tell you not to go,

she wouldn't say anything like "please don't leave, stay with me."

She never did, my mother never did that.

My mother would always prepare the things that I need for me.

She would help to prepare it all,

so that I could take them with me when I leave

and then after a long time, I would come back home again.

In 2008, when I was in France writing

the screenplay for Visage, I got the news that

she was diagnosed cancer and needed to undergo surgery.

I dropped everything and went back.

I saw her looking very weak and fragile.

I immediately made up my mind to accompany her

for as much as possible, to be by her side,

to try my best to fulfill my responsibility as a son.

She passed away six months later.

During that period, there is this strong sense

of indebtedness to her.

And the feeling of helplessness.

Lately, apart from making films

I've also started doing installation art.

I wanted to do an exhibition about chairs.

So I decided to find 49 chairs of different ages,

but all at least 30 years old.

I wanted to use the kind of chairs

that Taiwanese people used,

and put them in a gallery as an exhibition.

When visitors come, they can buy a cup of coffee

and sit on these chairs.

So these exhibits can be used,

it's not just for a looking at, visitors can also sit on them and drink coffee.

I decided to call this work Moonlight on the River.

Why?

Because this building is directly opposite a river.

We're on the sixth floor

and so the view from the windows is really beautiful,

it's a bend on the Keelung River.

Like this chair here, everyone is very moved.

A lot of people when they sit here,

they remember the chairs they sat on as children

to have their photographs taken in photography studios.

Like this one.

You see our lives have changed so much,

now we no longer need to go to a photography studio

to have photos taken. Everyone has their own camera.

But in the past having a photo taken

was such an important thing.

So for many people

there is a similar experience of being photographed.

It's not necessarily this chair

but it will be very much like this one.

Then I started wondering what I could do apart from this.

I decided to paint these chairs,

because you see there is a certain beauty in these chairs.

They are not the same when they are still new.

They don't look this beautiful when they were new.

After so many years, the chairs have

gained a kind of unique beauty,

a "beauty" given to them by time.

So I decided I wanted to help these chairs,

which were mostly just thrown out by people,

to gain their value again.

I wanted to contemplate them

and so I decided I will paint them.

If this chair is new, you'd probably think it's ugly.

But after so many years

the sense of beauty comes from feelings.

How can I explain? I mean it's already got a life of its own.

So when I was painting this chair,

I felt like I was painting its soul.

This work was born from film,

it came about quite naturally.

I mean making films in this period of time,

or in the past up until now,

I don't think they have been

regarded as important works.

There isn't really much freedom in filmmaking. As a director I want more freedom.

Apart from pursuing it with films,

freedom can also be developed in other art forms.

When I do this exhibition,

I feel I have more freedom,

that I can really express my feelings freely.

My films come from my daily life.

Everything I created is from my life.

If I didn't have the experiences,

I probably wouldn't have feelings for these chairs.

This period of time is a phase of blind development,

so many things are just being thrown away.

The reason is simple, because

people want new things,

they want fashionable things.

So, when people buy things

they're not necessarily looking for durable ones.

And they don't realize that they have a chair at home

that's been there for fifty or sixty years,

and is still perfectly fine,

but when they move, they throw it away,

or they throw it out during new year to get a new one.

Because they can't,

or they haven't reached the age

when they can really appreciate something's beauty.

So I think this work lets people stop

and think about many life issues,

and that's why I exhibited these kinds of chairs.

Also every single chair is very comfortable.

I think that when it comes to filming

he's much more energetic than other people.

He is the director with the most energy.

He's worn out everyone.

He always seems so energetic on the set.

Yes,

go straight out.

Walk forward.

Yes, walk forward.

Just slightly to the left.

Yes. That's just right.

Actually he develops his screenplay

when he is just chatting to people.

I stopped reading his screenplay since ten years ago,

around the time we made What Time Is It There?

I just try to relax,

walk onto the set and be like

a piece of blank paper for him to paint on.

Yes. I want him a bit closer.

Close in.

Cut! Do one more take.

From observation I don't think Tsai has

this nature of going out

and explore totally different territory

because I think his experience,

daily life experience and his childhood,

there are a lot of wealth and material inside him

that he keeps exploring in this world.

That is very unique

because when you see many other filmmakers,

it's always like jumping to the trend or whatever

but Tsai always give you him, himself

and I really appreciate that.

Stage, dark.

The first time I met you,

you were sitting on

a motorbike that was parked outside the terrace.

You were smoking in silence.

Your posture looks like him.

Not long after that you got a strange illness.

Your neck got twisted just like that.

I went with you to find medical help

and pray for Buddha's protection.

The doctors thought you would be crippled for life.

You were so depressed you thought about killing yourself,

and then your illness got better,

I came to you to make a film,

and asked you to act out that illness again.

I talked to you about my father.

Ever since I was a child,

I felt like he was a stranger. One time he came to grandfather's house

to take me to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.

At the hospital,

I ran away from the nurse

and he held me down.

When the tooth was pulled,

I sat in his car

and didn't dare cry.

It was the first time I'd been alone with my father

and I was really scared.

Halfway home,

he bought me a goldfish.

Kang-Sheng, I think the dance movements,

that bit isn't very good.

When you lie down,

you just need to keep moving gently.

It's not like this.

You need not follow the rhythm,

you can just move the wrist.

Come down,

down, much slower now.

Try to do it like this with little changes.

Then when it reached the side and stopped,

the movements become smaller.

At the end,

I don't think you should lower your hand like this.

I think you should lower it straight down,

don't bend to the side, it doesn't look good,

just do it like this.

Tsai Ming-Liang grew up in Malaysia

in a Chinese household

where a lot of tradition was preserved,

like Chinese culture

and the music his father used to listen to then.

Although it was not in Mainland China or Taiwan,

family life in a Malaysian Chinese household

maintains the rules of father and son relationship,

the moral values and feelings.

Some of the traditions are even deeper

and better preserved, they're even more profound,

compared to post-war Taiwan.

They seemed to have preserved

more traditions from earlier on,

like songs and literature.

When he came to Taiwan, he is a foreign student.

But actually he was closer to life than anyone else,

for example deciding where to live,

how he communicated with people,

how he asked for something from the landlord,

or where he went to eat,

how he saved water,

knew what to do if the tap broke, things like that.

So he had accumulated a lot in his life,

and also create this life for himself.

He is a foreigner

but it seemed like he'd come to take charge,

and there is this profound Chinese culture

and tradition in him.

Sometimes when I think back about

how my work has reached this level,

I feel I should be grateful to two things.

First, the era in which I was born in my home town

and the atmosphere that it gave me.

That helped me to understand how I could be free.

To be free is to be oneself.

It made me realize that anything is possible,

you just have to try.

And the second is Taiwan, seeing the development of

democracy and liberalization here.

It looks like it was very chaotic but in fact it gave me a lot of opportunities.

Tsai Ming-Liang is definitely

one of a kind in Chinese Cinema.

Unique, really unique.

His films are not designed to entertain the masses,

or to sell tickets.

His films are not influenced by other people's films.

That means he's not in the mainstream cinema.

By mainstream films we usually mean

Hollywood in the West

and European films

European cinema like in Italy or France

are more auteur-centric.

The auteur concept started because originally films are silent.

Silent films had many limitations.

So a director's ability to handle images

has to be very strong.

Nowadays it's rare to find directors

who can handle images well.

Now that seems to be the cinematographer's job

but in fact it isn't. It's incredibly important.

So ever since we've had talkies,

that aspect has weakened.

Cinema is only 100 years old, it's still young,

but Tsai Ming-Liang's way of expressing

I think it is already very special.

Whether it is the form or the content that

he is expressing, they are very unique.

Everyone has their own thoughts,

but the important thing is the way you express them.

I think Tsai's way of expression is very unique.

I have to say that in his more recent films,

there are scenes that I don't understand.

For example Visage,

there are some long takes that I just couldn't understand.

But I think

we can't possibly understand everything in life, right?

You don't understand very single thing in life, do you?

There are lots of feelings,

lots of phenomena that we can't understand.

So I think if there are

scenes in film that we can't understand,

it can make us think,

make us reflect from time to time.

Why?

What are we doing?

That's a good thing.

I think his movies are very personal.

In some ways, I would say he is quite stubborn

but that is why he is such a great artist

that we all respect him so much.

He doesn't want this, he doesn't want that,

nothing could seduce him this way or that way,

or force him to do this or that, this is what he wants and he will only do that.

Even if you give him more money,

it doesn't matter or less,

that is what he wants!

He is very specific and very internal.

I think he is very courageous.

For someone making art to reveal

what really matters to him,

the internal feeling,

the abstract feeling that we cannot verbalize it,

and he visualize it.

It is a mystery

but he is brave and honest enough to reveal it.

For that it doesn't matter

he is a Malaysian or Taiwanese,

it doesn't matter!

He is a great artist,

he works for the entire human being.

He is very brave and I really admire his courage.

His movie, The River really astonished me.

The River gave me a lot of inspiration.

When I watch that, I was going through,

along with the movie I was going through

a psychological journey

in a very abstract way, it's pure cinema.

I don't know how to put a word on it.

His work is like a mystery,

but as a filmmaker

I almost could feel what he went through.

I had a heart to heart with him

when I watch those movies.

It is not really

verbalize-able, so to speak.

That is what I think movie is in its purest form.

The most impressive thing is when I saw The River.

I didn't really actually tell him,

I just want to be very close to him as his friend.

I care him very much in a very personal way.

I think he is such a precious artist,

we need to love him,

care for him,

nourish him, in doing so we expect him to give us

his innermost and most precious feeling and artistry for inspiration.

And he is one of those precious things in life.

I love him. I love him as an artist.

Let's do it again, one more take.

Let's do it one more time.

The earlier take was too hurried, please excuse us.

He told me in Thailand that

he wanted to make the next film to be his last film.

And he talked about his films,

that he feels that cinema is dying

and he feels no use of doing it.

He feels like movie

for him should be very pure

and he wants to screen films in the wild,

in the jungle.

It somehow match with

what I had some ideas of movies.

It is kind of like a defining moment because it is kind of our ideas merged

like "I feel you" and also I feel sad

and I said "I hope you are lying or joking" because

that would be quite a big loss

if he stops making movies.

How many brothers do you have?

I have three.

Keep it in your car.

Thank you.

Take care of your health.

Thank you.

You take are too.

Tsai Ming-Liang

is a very simple person.

He loves film.

I think he's always been determined

to follow his own artistic path.

Although it's very difficult,

I can see how hard he works

and how he has gradually

won recognition.

His achievement should neither be measured by the awards he has won

nor the box-office receip

I think his achievement is that

he can make films that are very different from others

and with that, he gives people chances

to experience this kind of unique films.

I'm happy to let fate take control and carry me through

I often say that fate has been good to me,

God's been good to me,

put me in a great position,

ever since I was a child and schooling

and then going overseas to study,

right up until now working and creating,

and the people I've met.

I've always been kind of drifting, living here and there,

I feel that although sometimes it hasn't all been smooth,

but I've never felt that it was a problem,

it all seemed like it had to happen.

I feel like it's a natural life,

your fate will carry you along,

and whether or not you believe in fate,

doesn't mean you have to surrender to it,

but you trust that fate has arranged things well for you

and then you just have to make some choices.

If you ask me whether I have any regrets,

I would say "No, I couldn't have."

A long time ago someone asked me

How many films do you want to make?

I never wanted to make more than 10 films

and now I've made 10.

Maybe later on there will be some other plans.

But that will all just be extra,

because I don't feel like I want to do a lot of things.

I feel more and more that

I just want to do what I like doing,

and to be happy doing it.

If you asked me to start all over again,

I think I'd like to go back to my childhood

and do it all just the same, but it's not possible,

because the source of everything for me

comes from my childhood.

Since we first met at the riverbank

It's as if the spring wind blew into my heart

Let me tell you softly

Don't forget me

Since the day we parted at the riverbank

Endless pain has filled my heart

Let me tell you softly

Don't forget me

The autumn wind is so cruel

Why make the red maple leaves fall?

Still young and red, why destroy them?

Oh life is just a dream!

Since the day we parted at the riverbank

Endless pain has filled my heart

Let me tell you softly

Don't forget me