The Wayward Cloud
Director: Tsai Ming-Liang
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 3.5
A continuation of What Time Is It There? (more or less) which finds the two main characters from that film reuniting during a drought - she sits around and watches TV while he currents finds employment as a porn star. Tsai's common symbols (water and water/melon) are back - the lack of water representing emotional stagnation and the watermelon acting as the strangest representation for love I've ever seen ('the bigger the melon, the bigger the love') - and his interest in alienation works perfectly when applied to the not-so-glamorous world of pornography (sex cannot be confused with love). The musical numbers are a distraction and I didn't walk away from this feeling elated - perhaps the final sequence in which a woman's unconscious body is violated and filmed is just too disturbing and cold to produce any sensation except disgust - but it's also a brave work, unflinching in its depiction of downhearted souls completely adrift.
