Vive l’amour
(Ai qing wan sui)

Remember that Chunking Express (Wong Kar-wai) and Vive l’amour arrived on our screens at the same time, one from Hong Kong, the other from Taipei. Both of these wildly inventive films, so very close yet also separated by their specific time and tone, speak to us of the same melancholy and alienation of young people in their respective cities – the first with a bustling and talkative excitement, the second with its drawn-out and taciturn spleen. Luxury show apartments, bathrooms, a city where everything seems cramped and characters go round in circles – this poem by Tsai Ming-liang seems like a theorem that entraps its inhabitants. The spacious framing and the long shots highlight their isolation. But yes, love exists. And each of them still wants to believe in it rather than die of boredom. JB