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© Ludovic Carème
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| TSAI Ming-Liang
MALAYSIA | TAIWAN
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Biography and Filmography
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Tsai Ming-Liang was born in Malaysia on October 27, 1957. He graduated from the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan and has written and directed for stage and television. His films have won many awards including the 1994 Golden Lion (Vive L'Amour, 1994), the Silver Bear for Wayward Cloud (2004) and five FRIPESCI awards.
In 2002, he received the distinguished medal of the Knight of Order of Arts and Letters from the French government
From his first feature, Rebels of the Neon God (1992), to the recent playfully scandalous Wayward Cloud (2004) that won major prizes at the last Berlin International Film Festival, Tsai Ming-Liang has cast a dispassionate eye upon contemporary life and human relations, often happily mixing genres and moving from melancholy to black comedy.
Tsai Ming-Liang is regarded as a master of contemporary cinema and is one of the generation of Taiwanese new wave film-makers who have made Taiwanese films so significant in world cinema. His other films include The River (1997), The Hole (1998), and Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003), a stylistic tour-de-force and moving requiem to the passage of time and the passing of the cinema.
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Project presented in The Atelier
Tsai Ming-Liang : Bridging the Gap - 17/05/2001
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One of Taiwan's major directors, Tsai Ming-Liang arrived at Cannes today to present his latest feature “What Time Is It There ?”, screening in the Official Selection. The 43-year-old Malaysian-born author of another seven films ( “Last Dance”, “The River”, “Vive l'Amour"...) portrays Hsiao-Kang who sells watches in the streets of Taipei for his living. A few days after his father's death, he meets a young woman, Shiang-Chyi who flies to Paris the very next day. Troubled by his mother's behaviour who constantly prays for the spirit of her late husband to return, Hsiao-Kang takes refuge in the memory of his brief encounter with Shiang-Chyi. In an effort to bridge the distance separating them, he sets the watches and clocks in Taipei to Paris time. Meanwhile, in Paris, Shiang-Chyi confronts events that mysteriously seem to be connected with Hsiao-Kang.
Why is Hsiao-Kang constantly ajusting the time ? "You cannot guess the intentions behind it. Like you I have no idea either. The director is not God", explains the director, best known for his deadpan humour and his depiction of the alienated longing and isolation in today's booming Taipei.
A former TV director, Tsai has been labelled "The Fassbinder of Taiwan", a trend in Western film criticism unaware of the difference between Asian and European filmmakers. |
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