Venezia 2013: STRAY DOGS don't bark

Taipei Director Tsai Ming-Liang , a long-standing hero of slow cinema fans, is offering in STRAY DOGS something very different.

This is a meditation on the way time flows through our lives, when seconds can stretch into hours and entire months can be swallowed by a single cut.

 

His film seen now at the 70th Mostra di Venezia marches very much to his own pace and to his own beat.

 

"Stray Dogs" frustrates those looking for answers or traditional narrative, and moves at an especially sleepy pace, with some shots lasting around the ten minute mark.

But those who stayed to the end were rewarded with one of the most distinctive and beguiling films of the Mostra 2013.

Tsai sets the tone for what's to follow with a lengthy shot of a moldy flat, where two children (Lee Yi Cheng and his sister Li Yi Chieh) sleep while a woman, presumably their mother, watches over them, brushing her hair over her face.

Soon, she's gone, and the children are left living in a shipping container with their father .

 

He makes a meager living, most of which is spent on alcohol and cigarettes, holding up an advertising sign in the middle of the motorway.

The children don't seem to be in school anymore.

Instead they spend their days playing and living off free supermarket samples.

 

The woman returns, in a way; two other actresses return as maternal figures, but it's not totally apparent from the film itself that they're meant to be the same character ...

It should be fairly apparent at this point that "Stray Dogs" is not going to be for everyone.

 

This is Art Cinema in very deliberate upper case, with a languid naturalism that creates a mood more dream-like than kitchen sink.

And if the opening shot doesn't clue you in, Tsai is hardly a rapid-fire cutter.

 

But the film is as fully realized and strongly executed.

Every shot feels perfectly composed, while often surprising.

Every time Tsai makes a cut, you can't see how it could have been done any other way.

 

While their sheer duration might test some's patience, while the penultimate scene does seem to go forever,  it turns out to be deeply, deeply moving...

 

So the filmmaking here is almost impossibly well-realized, right down to the evocative sound design.

 

 But the film remains resonant and affecting.

 

 These are high standards to set for anyone, and of all the films I saw in Venice, this is the one that most demands a second viewing: there's an awful lot to unpack here.

 But, if nothing else, you're left with a masterclass in directing, and a film that anyone who's serious about cinema needs to make the time to see.

 

giulia ghica dobre

 

Running time: 136 MIN. Original title: "Jiaoyou"

Production

(Taiwan-France) A Homegreen Films, JBA Prods. production in association with House On Fire, Urban Distribution Intl. (International sales: Urban Distribution Intl., Montreuil.) Produced by Vincent Wang. Co-producers, Jacques Bidou, Marianne Dumoulin.

Crew

Directed by Tsai Ming-liang. Screenplay, Tung Cheng Yu, Peng Fei, Tsai. Camera (color), Liao Pen-jung, Sung Wen Zhong; editor, Lei Zhenqing; production designer, Masa Liu, Tsai; set decorator, Li Yufeng; costume designer, Wang Chia Hui; sound, Mark Ford; assistant director, Feng Fiu.

With

Lee Kang-sheng, Lee Yi-chieh, Lee Yi-cheng, Yang Kuei-mei, Lu Yi-ching, Chen Shiang-chyi, Wu Jin Kai. (Mandarin dialogue)